s ■ 






THE 



SEA-SIDE 



A SERIES OF 



SHORT ESSAYS AND POEMS, 

ON VARIOUS SUBJECTS, 



SUGGESTED BY 



A TEMPORARY RESIDENCE 



Catering pace. 



BY THE 



REV. JOHN EAST, A. M. 

1 1 

LECTURER OF ST. PHILIP'S, AND CURATE OF ST. JAMES'S, BRISTOL. 



$ufcUsI)rtf be 
W. RICHARDSON, CLARE STREET, BRISTOL; 

AND 

HAMILTON, ADAMS, & CO. PATERNOSTER ROW, 
LONDON. 

MDCCCXXVII. 



*\ 









Jjs) h 



FULLER, PRINTER, BRI6T0L. 






PREFACE. 



A Volume, on the subjects treated of 
in that which is here presented to the 
public, has appeared to the Author to be 
particularly desirable for the use of the 
many, who either annually or occasionally 
resort to the Watering-places of our coast 
for health or pleasure. How far he has 
supplied the desideratum, he must leave 
to the judgment of others. He cannot, 
however, refrain from the expression of a 
wish, unavailing as it may be, that he had 
possessed leisure and ability to render his 
production more worthy of acceptance by 



- 



IV PREFACE. 

the religious public. He has done what 
he could. To shine is not his object. It 
will satisfy him if he may be useful. While, 
therefore, he diffidently offers the Volume 
to his companions in the pilgrimage of life, 
he, at the same time, humbly commends it 
to the favour and blessing of their common 
Saviour. 

The Author has adopted the form of a 
Jpartial narrative, in the arrangement of his 
materials, with a view of imparting to the 
whole somewhat more of interest than 
might have been taken in an immethodical 
collection, or in a continuous series of 
compositions. 

Bristol, May 23, 1827. 



CONTENTS 



Pages. 

Chap. I. — Introduction. The plan proposed 1 — 5 

Chap. II. — A First View of the Sea. Reflections on 

Eternity 6—12 

Chap. III. — Creation of the Sea. Lord Byron on the 
Ocean. H. Moore, on Divine 

Love IS — 28 

Chap. IV. — Monody written on the Sea Shore ....... 29 — 35 

Chap. V. — Lines on " The Sea is His, and He made 

it." 36—38 

Chap. VI. — Sabbath Eve at a Watering Place. Pre- 
paration for the Sabbath 39 — 45 

Chap. VII.-— Sabbath by the Sea. Visit to the House 
of God. Sermon on Psalm civ. 

1, 2, 3 46—72 

Chap. VIII.— The Sea-side Tomb. Country Church. 

Elegy „ 75— 79, 

Chap. IX. — Excursion to an Island. The Uses of the 

Sea 80—98, 

b 



VI CONTENTS. 

Pages. 

Chap. X. — The Inhabitants of the Sea. Falconer on 
the Dying Dolphin. Fisheries. 
Reflections on Christ's Selection 
of his Apostles 99 — 113 

Chap. XI.— The Flood. The Mosaic Record. lines 
from Montgomery. Geological 
Proofs of a Universal Deluge. 
The Backslider 114 — 135 

Chap. XII. — Irad, or the Last Antediluvian, a Poem 136 — 140 

Chap. XIII.— The Ark. Noah's Character. His 
Preservation. The Ark a Type 
of Christ 141—155 

Chap. XIV.— The Invalid 156—164 

Chap. XV.— The Sea of Atonement. Reflections on 

the Atonement of Christ .......... 165 — 172 

Chap. XVI. — The Cruise. Progress of Navigation. 
Invention of the Mariner's Com- 
pass. Discovery of America. 
Columbus. Rise and Fall of Ma- 
ritime Nations. 173 — 198 

Chap. XVII. — The Slave Ship. Lines from Grahame. 
The Slave Trade. Sentiments of 
Pitt and Fox. Cowper's Morning 
Dream 199—229 

Chap. XVIII. — The Missionary Voyage, a Poem. 
Moravian Missionaries. Lines 
from Montgomery 230 — 242 

Chap. XIX. — Restraint upon the Sea. Canute 243—251 

Chap. XX. — The Shipwreck. Discourse upon the 

Shipwreck of St. Paul 252—272 

Chap. XXL— The Sea-side Hamlet. A short Narrative 27S—279. 

Chap. XXII. — Hope the Soul's Anchor. Sabbath 
Evening. Hymn on Hope. Re- 
marks on Heb vi. 17. 20. Hymn 280—290 



CONTENTS. Vll 

Pages. 

CHAr. XXIIL— The Depths Congealed. Passage of 

Israel through the lied Sea. Lines 

from Rolleston. Dr. Watts's 

Hymn on God's Dominion over 

the Sea 291—307 

Chap. XXIV.— The Sea Pilgrim, an Allegory. Cow- 
per's Castaway, and Lines to the 
Rev. J. Newton, on his return 

from Ramsgate 308—321 

Chap. XXV. — The Sands. Uses of Sand. Deserts. 
Imagery borrowed from the Sands. 
Newton's Thought on the Sea- 
shore. The Rock, a Poem 322—334 

Chap. XXVI. — Bathing. Salubrious Qualities of Sea- 
water. Address to Invalids. Lines 335 — 346 

Chap. XXVII. — The Latter Day. Remarks on Mis- 
sionary Institutions. Comment on 
Hab. ii. 14. Thoughts on Psalm 
lxxii. 8. Verses on Psalm xcvi v ll. 
Reflection on Rev. xix. 6. Re- 
marks on Isa. xi. 11. Verses on 
Isa. xlii. 10. Comments on 
Isa. lx. 5 ; on Dan. vii. 2 ; and on 
Luke xxi. 25. Lines on Gen. i. 2 347 — 366 

Chap. XXVIII.— The Cavern. Visit to a Subterrane- 
ous Cavity. Remarks on Psalm 
xcv. 4 , . . . . 367—375 

Chap. XXIX — The Storm. Scripture Imagery 374 — 387 

Chap. XXX. — Jesus on the Sea. Verses 388 — 390 

Chap. XXXI. — Evening. Beauty of Autumnal Even- 
ings by the Sea. Verses 391 — S97 

Chap. XXXII.— The Depths of Providence. Sunday 
Evening. Exposition of Psalm 
xxxvi. 6. Hymn 398—410 



Vlll 



CONTEXTS. 



Pages. 
Chap. XXXIII.— A Last View of the Sea. Return 
home. Lord Byron. Genius. Dr. 
Johnson's Remarks on the Last. 
Lines on — There was no more 
Sea 411—416 



"Erratum. 

Page 78, line 3, for /orm'd, rend fann'd. 



THE SEA-SIDE. 



CHAPTER I. 



INTRODUCTION. 



" A plan has occurred to me," said the Rev. 
W. Hamilton to his family and a select circle of 
friends, " which may conduce both to the pleasure 
and the benefit we expect to derive from our visit 
to the sea-coast. We shall, I hope, often meet 
together, and enjoy the sacred intercourse of 
Christian friendship — an intercourse, which, while 
it may embrace all the urbanity and refinement of 
polished society, is conducted upon principles 
widely differing from those that constitute the 
basis of worldly associations, and has a freedom 
and a tact peculiarly its own. In the midst of 
scenes like these, our thoughts and our conver- 
sation will naturally take a colouring reflected 
from surrounding objects. I wish that we should 
avail ourselves of the advantages hence arising to 



* INTRODUCTION. 

us, for illustrating and impressing more deeply on 
our minds many subjects of high and delightful 
interest. ' There are animals/ says Dr. Johnson, 
' that borrow their colour from the neighbouring 
body, and consequently vary their hue as they 
happen to change their place. In like manner it 
ought to be the endeavour of every man to derive 
his reflections from the objects about him ; for it 
is to no purpose that he alters his position, if his 
attention continues fixed to the same point. The 
mind should be kept open to the access of every 
new idea, and so far disengaged from the pre- 
dominance of particular thoughts, as easily to 
accommodate itself to occasional entertainment/ 
My scheme is simply this : that each of our party 
should employ a part of the time daily assigned 
to mental improvement, in writing familiar papers, 
or essays, on scriptural topics, suggested by the 
scenery before us. These, if you approve my plan, 
shall be read by the writers in our social parties, 
like the present. No criticism shall be allowed, 
that no painful feelings may be excited ; and even 
approbation shall be most sparingly, if at all ex- 
pressed, that there may arise no incentives for the 
encouragement of other emotions, still more to be 
avoided than the former. The materials may be 
gathered from the stores of memory, experience, 
observation, or reading. I wish for no display of 
authorship, much less for any thing bordering on 



INTRODUCTION. 6 

literary rivalry. Let a desire to communicate and 
receive benefit predominate over every other con- 
sideration. We are to be left to our own choice 
of subjects and style, of which our various tastes 
and the ample number of topics will give an oppor- 
tunity for sufficient diversity. I will cheerfully 
contribute my own quota, as an encouragement 
for you readily to gratify me with yours. I 
perceive a smile upon your countenances. Speak 
your sentiments upon my proposal with frank- 
ness." 

" Father," answered Pascal, the Vicar's eldest 
son, " neither my sisters nor myself ought to 
hesitate for a moment at complying with the 
wishes of a parent, whose kindness and affection 
have ever rendered obedience as pleasant to his 
children as it is obligatory. I am fully persuaded 
of the forbearance, and even partiality, which you 
will show towards the productions of our youthful 
pens. For my own part, I will with delight furnish 
an occasional paper. It will cost me, indeed, 
something to read my humble lucubrations ; but I 
shall look for my recompense in listening to the 
papers of others." 

" Like all my father's schemes," said Louisa, 
" this is inviting and useful. I could almost 
wish, however, that he had exempted his poor girls 
from the task he has so kindly proposed. At least 
I may answer for myself, that little is to be ex- 



NTRODUCTION. 



pected from my scanty stores. But I am confident 
that he will implore a divine blessing upon the 
plan, and upon those who are to bear a part in its 
execution. This encourages me to pledge my 
endeavours to furnish my portion of papers." 

" My dear sister," added Julia, " you might 
with more propriety have answered for me, as to 
the slight expectations that are to be formed upon 
the poverty of my resources. The youngest and 
the least experienced might well be left in the seat 
of a listener. But I too implicitly regard papa's 
desires to be reluctant to please him." 

'"' And why Julia," said Theophilus, " did you 
not contrive some kind excuse for me. Though I 
am something your senior in age, you know that I 
am behind you in attainments, and that my pen 
is wont to be both slow and dull. Yet would it 
ill become me, father, to hold back, when my 
brother and sisters have so cheerfully promised 
compliance with your wishes. I will do my best. 
But what does my mother say to the scheme ? I 
hope that she will not plead her domestic engage- 
ments against her taking part with us." 

" My dear Theophilus," answered Mrs. Hamil- 
ton, " I might appoint you the interpreter of my 
thoughts. Such a plea as you have suggested, 
has several times almost escaped my lips, and its 
validity you cannot deny. The hope that its force 
had its proper influence upon you all, has kept me 



INTRODUCTION. 6 

silent during your conversation. As, however, I 
am appealed to in a manner, which seems to insure 
me all due allowances, I will not damp the pleasure 
you anticipate from our union in so proper and 
advantageous a contrivance, for giving a novel 
interest to our season of recreation, and for render- 
ing it subservient to the great ends we ought ever 
to keep in view, the glory of our God and Saviour, 
and our own spiritual improvement." 

" But we do not yet know," resumed the Vicar, 
" what is passing in the minds of our friends. I 
hope that they will not hesitate to favour us with 
their co-operation." 

Mr. Willoughby, with his daughter and two 
sons, cheerfully acceded to the proposal, and the 
only remaining difficulty was to fix upon the 
individual who should take the lead, and produce 
the introductory paper. This difficulty, however, 
was speedily removed by Miss Willoughby's re- 
marking, that as Mr. Pascal Hamilton had been 
the first volunteer in the business, after it was 
suggested by his father, and had recently com- 
pleted his first academical year at the University, 
the party might reasonably expect, that he should 
make a commencement. This point having been 
amicably settled, it was agreed that the two families 
should meet again at the house occupied by Mr. 
Willoughby, on the ensuing Thursday evening. 



CHAPTER II. 



A FIRST VIEW OF THE SEA. 



The Hamiltons joined their friends on the 
appointed evening. The drawing room windows 
commanded a very extensive semi-panorama, 
bounded on the north and south by long ranges 
of cliffs and mountains, and on the west by the 
swelling ocean and the bending sky. The twi- 
light, however, had retired to the northern part 
of the horizon, and, though it threw into bold 
prominence the dark blue outline of the moun- 
tains, left the rest of the prospect but dimly 
visible. When the candles had been lighted, and 
the ladies had taken up their useful employments, 
Mr. Willoughby requested Pascal to redeem 
the pledge he had given his friends. A smile of 
satisfaction, at their commencement of this 
new and agreeable mode of occupying a social 
evening, glowed upon every countenance, and 



A FIRST VIEW OF THE SEA. / 

Pascal proceeded to read aloud his paper, which 
he had entitled 

A FIRST VIEW OF THE SEA. 

" We were giving a final and admiring glance to 
the rich inland scenery, that slowly receded from 
our sight, as we leisurely ascended a lofty acclivity, 
when the sudden stopping of the carriage an- 
nounced our arrival at the summit. We instan- 
taneously turned towards the scene, which in a 
moment burst upon our view. ' The sea ! — the sea ! ' 
— was the exclamation that immediately broke from 
our lips, which then immediately closed in a silence, 
that shrunk from the good-humoured, but unwel- 
come garrulity of our post-boy. Our eyes rapidly 
traversed the undulating country that lay beneath 
us, varied with woods, corn-fields, and meadows ; 
studded with towns, hamlets, and villas ; and in- 
tersected by numerous streams, meeting in one 
majestic river, upon whose calm and ample tide 
the sight glided onward to the distant ocean. 
There our minds reposed, as apparently did its 
waters, in silent tranquillity broken only by the 
resumed progress of the carriage. I observed that 
the waters were apparently at rest, for so they 
would seem to a spectator at some distance, whe- 
ther they were actually calm or tempestuous : and 
I have often made a similar remark when survey- 
ing an extensive prospect, in our admiration of 



8 A FIRST VIEW OF THE SEA. 

which, we lose sight of, or are reluctant to con- 
sider, the probable sorrows and passions, which, 
beneath that calm and attractive exterior, are 
agitating the unseen population of its cities and 
villages, its palaces and cottages. 

" We now gave utterance to some of the emotions, 
which in quick succession had been awakened in 
our minds. It was but a remote and partial view 
we had caught of the sea, and our rapid descent 
soon concealed it again : but it had been enough 
to communicate to us a measure of the delight felt 
by all, when for the first time, or after a temporary- 
absence, they behold - the great and wide sea.' 
Xenophon and his brave companions in arms 
recurred to my mind, and I enjoyed the recollec- 
tion of their enthusiasm, when, towards the close 
of their celebrated retreat, they reached the heights 
overlooking the Euxine, and, as one battalion after 
another gained the summit, joined in the general 
shout, ' The sea ! the sea ! ' Similar, too, were the 
feelings of Balboa, one of the earliest adventurers 
in America, on discovering the Pacific Ocean from 
the chain of mountains connecting the two conti- 
nents of the Western Hemisphere. ' When with 
infinite toil they had climbed up the greater part 
of that steep ascent, Balboa commanded his men 
to halt, and advanced alone to the summit, that he 
might be the first who should enjoy a spectacle he 
had so long desired. As soon as he beheld the 



A FIRST VIEW OF THE SEA. 9 

South Sea stretching in endless prospect below 
him, he fell on his knees, and lifting up his hands 
to heaven, returned thanks to God, who had con- 
ducted him to a discovery so beneficial to his 
country, and so honourable to himself. His 
followers, observing his transports of joy, rushed 
forward to join in his wonder, exultation, and 
gratitude. They held on their course to the shore 
with great alacrity, when Balboa, advancing up 
to the middle in the waves, with his buckler and 
sword took possession of that ocean in the name 
of the king his master, and vowed to defend it 
with those arms against all his enemies/ 1 I could 
not, indeed, compare my feelings, as a traveller on 
pleasure, and in pursuit of health, either with 
theirs, who saw, reflected from the surface of the 
waters, a hope of deliverance and safety from pur- 
suing foes ; or with his, who in a moment built 
upon the newly-discovered wave the airy fabric of 
human glory. But I was conscious of pleasurable 
sensations, for which I was well satisfied to have 
travelled so far, and to increase them was well con- 
tent to travel farther. I had caught a glimpse of 
a new province of creation. Associations, gathered 
from books, from conversation, and from the 
graphic regions of the pencil, rushed in upon my 
thoughts, and I was somewhat impatient at the 

1 Robertson's History of America, Book III. 
B 2 



10 A FIRST VIEW OF THE SEA. 

time and distance still intervening between me and 
the optata arena — the wished-for shore. Is not 
this, I asked myself, like the glimpse I sometimes 
obtain of eternity — that boundless ocean, whose 
waters lave and enclose the insulated space of 
time? I have not wholly forgotten my strong 
emotions, when first my mental eye looked beyond 
the limits of present existence, and caught a view 
of eternity. From my childhood I had heard and 
read of that futurity, which is to be ever future, as 
I had heard and read of the mighty deep ; but my 
conceptions were faint and unimpressive. My 
first feelings, were therefore, for a season, over- 
powering, though my sight was dim and imperfect : 
and, as often as they are renewed, they leave upon 
my spirits a solemnity and awe, which, at the same 
time that it is divested of terror and alarm, super- 
induces, while it lasts, a comparative indifference 
to all intervening objects. It never was intended, 
and our very constitution and temporal circum- 
stances forbid, that our minds should be always 
engrossed with this stupendous prospect. It 
cannot be, that such impressions should be perma- 
nent and unyielding. But we may and ought to 
lament that they are so evanescent. They leave, 
it is true, their effects and influence behind ; and I 
trust it is our prayer, that these may become 
increasingly decisive in their character, and exten- 
sive in their prevalence. Yet, as travellers, who 



A FIRST VIEW OF THE SEA. 11 

must shortly reach the shore, and launch upon the 
deep, we may wish that our earliest impressions 
of the vast concerns of an eternal scene should 
leave with us all their vividness and depth. Eter- 
nity ! Eternity ! — may we never lose sight of its 
momentous prospects and interests ! Even if these 
are not always the immediate subjects of our 
thoughts, may they exert a latent influence over 
our whole conduct ; give stability to our princi- 
ples ; moderate our earthly cares ; and add fervour 
to our search after "glory, honour, and immor- 
tality." We are rapidly traversing a country 
wherein we are strangers ; and our path is beset by 
numerous, powerful, and malignant foes. Let us 
connect with the thought of eternity, the joyful 
anticipation of a final escape from all the enemies 
of our souls. We are toil-worn travellers, crossing 
the narrow and rugged isthmus of time, which 
separates the eternity that is past, from the 
eternity that is to come. Let us exult at the 
near, and ever nearer view of the future ; for in 
that future — in that emphatically new world, 
the brightest visions of hope will be more than 
realized." 

" I think," said Mr. Willoughby, to his 
daughter, as Pascal laid down his paper, " that 
I saw a passage marked by your hand, in 
our Bard of the Night, consonant with these con- 



12 A FIRST VIEW OF THE SEA. 

eluding reflections of our young friend ; and, as we 
have not the book at hand, perhaps you will recite 
them." 

" You refer," answered Miss Willoughby, " I 
suppose, papa, to these lines" — 

And is it in the flight of threescore years 
To push eternity from human thought, 
And smother souls immortal in the dust ? 
A soul immortal, spending all her fires, 
Wasting her strength in strenuous idleness, 
Thrown into tumult, raptur'd or alarm'd, 
At aught this scene can threaten or indulge, 
Resembles ocean into tempest wrought 
To waft a feather or to drown a fly. 

" You might have proceeded," resumed her 
father, " with the poet's self-application of his 
admonitory strain. But I know, my dear girl, 
you are not very fond of making long viva voce 
quotations." 



CHAPTER III. 



CREATION. 



On the following morning, the whole party, by 
previous agreement, met on a rocky part of the 
shore. It was a very retired spot, and had often 
been a favourite resort of the young Willoughbys 
in a former year. The sea appeared to have un- 
dermined its strong barrier, and immense masses 
had slipped in various directions upon the sloping 
substratum of the cliffs. Here, according to the 
hour of the day, the state of the weather, or the 
taste of the visitors, a situation sheltered or ex- 
posed, shaded or sunny, might be selected, where, 
in perfect security, they could watch the flowing 
and ebbing tides, and yield their minds to those 
soothing and fascinating emotions, which arise in 
the soul, and alternately merge each other in such 
a scene, like the everchanging billows. In these 
emotions the friends for a while indulged them- 
selves, standing upon the rocky margin of the 
waters, and admiring the endless variety of motion 
and form which they assumed. At length they 



14 CREATION. 

seated themselves on different projections in a 
shady nook of the cliff, which overhung them ; 
and the ladies employed themselves in making 
small articles of clothing for the native children of 
a foreign mission school. 

" Miss Julia," said Mr. Willoughby to the 
Vicar, " informed my daughter, that you had 
anticipated your own interesting and improving 
scheme, by the preparation of several papers on 
some of the subjects proposed. May we therefore 
look to you, sir, for our present entertain- 
ment ? " 

" It is very true," answered his friend, " that 
I have a few humble attempts to turn to good 
account the days of relaxation we may spend here. 
One of these I now have with me, and I will most 
cheerfully comply with the request you have so 
kindly made. My paper is on the simple and 
beautiful sentiment, which daily recurs in our 
public morning service. 

" THE SEA IS HIS, AND HE MADE IT." 

" It has often delighted me to witness the interest 
in this grand object, manifested on the arrival of a 
family at a watering place. Amidst all the bustle 
consequent upon that arrival, and notwithstanding 
the many necessary cares to be attended to, in the 
selection of a suitable temporary abode, the first 
moments after reaching the sea-side, are commonly 



CREATION. 15 

engrossed with the scene in view. Even in fixing 
upon a residence, many discomforts are overlooked 
or compromised, and much additional expense is 
readily incurred, to secure a prospect of the 'deep 
and dark blue ocean/ We go from window to 
window, from point to point, to vary or extend 
our field of contemplation, and we reluctantly 
close our first ramble on the beach, or withdraw 
from our post of observation, when the shades of 
night spread themselves around us. We admire, 
and, to some extent, feel the enthusiasm of the 
poet in his apostrophe to the ocean : — 

Roll on, thou deep and dark blue ocean — roll! 
Ten thousand fleets sweep over thee in vain ; 
Man marks the earth with ruin — his control 
Stops with the shore ; — upon the watery plain 
The wrecks are all thy deed, nor doth remain 
A shadow of man's ravage, save his own, 
When, for a moment, like a drop of rain, 
He sinks into thy depths with bubbling groan, 
Without a grave, unknell'd, uncoffin'd, and unknown. 

His steps are not upon thy paths, — thy fields 
Are not a spoil for him, — thou dost arise 
And shake him from thee ; the vile strength he wields 
For earth's destruction thou dost all despise, 
Spurning him from thy bosom to the skies, 
And send'st him, shiv'ring in thy playful spray, 
And howling, to his gods, where haply lies 
His petty hope in some near port or bay, 
And dashest him again to earth :— there let him lay. 



16 CREATION. 

The armaments, which thunderstrike the walls 
Of rock-built cities, bidding nations quake, 
And monarchs tremble in their capitals, 
The oak leviathans, whose huge ribs make 
Their clay creator the vain title take 
Of lord of thee, and arbiter of war ; 
These are thy toys, and, as the snowy flake, 
They melt into thy yeast of waves, which mar 
Alike the Armada's pride, or spoils of Trafalgar. 

Thy shores are empires, chang'd in all save thee — 
Assyria, Greece, Rome, Carthage, what are they ? 
Thy waters wasted them while they were free, 
And many a tyrant since ; their shores obey 
The stranger, slave, or savage ; their decay 
Has dried up realms to deserts : — not so thou, 
Unchangeable save to thy wild waves' play — 
Time writes no wrinkle on thine azure brow — 
Such as creation's dawn beheld, thou rollest now. 

Thou glorious mirror, where the Almighty's form 
Glasses itself in tempests ; in all time, 
Calm or convuls'd — in breeze, or gale, or storm, 
Icing the pole, or in the torrid clime 
Dark-heaving ; — boundless, endless, and sublime — 
The image of eternity — the throne 
Of the Invisible ; even from out thy slime 
The monsters of the deep are made ; each zone 
Obeys thee ; thou goest forth, dread, fathomless, alone. 

" Gratitude for the mercies attendant upon tra- 
velling, and for the means and opportunity of 
resorting to the sea-side, diffuses its happy in- 



CREATION. 



17 



fluence over the Christian's spirit at such a season : 
nor does it slightly affect him with thankfulness, 
if the great Giver of all mental endowments has 
bestowed on him a mind capable of discerning 
and enjoying the beauties of nature, or rather, the 
works of nature's God . He will, indeed, pity the 
character of the mere sentimentalist, whose feel- 
ings resemble the relaxed chords of a harp, which 
wildly vibrate at every touch : but he does not 
therefore indulge in himself the obtuse insen- 
sibility, which views every object, whether of 
grandeur or beauty, without emotion. His imagi- 
nation, fervid, yet chastised, aids his faith ; and 
his faith, limited by divine truth, circumscribes his 
imagination, though with a compass ample as the 
universe. The Christian contemplates nature with 
a new sense, and that sense is a divine faith, given 
him of God, which, at the same time that it sub- 
stantiates things hoped for, and convinces of things 
not seen, invests also visible realities with an 
attractiveness unknown and unfelt by the man of 
the world and the votary of pleasure. ' Through 
faith, we understand that the worlds were framed 
by the word of God, so that things which are seen 
were not made of things which do appear ;' and 
in our visits to the borders of the mighty deep, we 
shall do well to call our faith into frequent exercise 
on a point, whereon the saints of earlier days loved 
to dwell. Their recollections or contemplations of 



18 CREATION. 

' the great and wide sea' brought up before them 
the magnificent operations of Jehovah, when he 
issued his omnific word, and bade into existence 
the hosts of his creatures. Let us, with them, 
revert to the day, when ' the earth was without 
form, and void ; and darkness was upon the face of 
the deep ; and the Spirit of God moved upon the 
face of the waters/ The unorganized mass had 
just emerged from nonentity, and lay in the view 
of its Creator ready to receive whatever forms his 
consummate wisdom might contrive, and his 
plastic hand might give. After light had followed 
the word that commanded its existence, and pro- 
vision had been made by an expanded atmosphere 
for the elevation of vapour and the suspension of 
clouds, * God said, Let the waters under the 
heaven be gathered together into one place ; and 
it was so : and the gathering together of the 
waters call he seas. ' It has been often and well 
remarked, that in the simple fiat of creation there 
is a grandeur far exceeding all the pomp of 
language. ' He spake, and it was done. He 

COMMANDED, AND IT STOOD FAST.' The mind 

is held in mute astonishment on reverting to the 
day, which witnessed the separation, at the word 
of the Most High, of the confused materials of our 
globe into two grand divisions, leaving, however, 
to the gathered aqueous fluid the dominion of three 
fourths of the earth's surface, which in the act of 



CREATION. 19 

separation was sunk into vast cavities of unequal 
depths, where, as in the hollow of his hand, 
Jehovah holds the waters, and ■ layeth up the 
deep in store-houses.' He moves that hand, and 
those waters rise in mountain billows, whose 
foaming crests seem to sweep the sky. He holds 
it still, and they repose in motionless tranquillity. 
The inspired Psalmist referred to the transactions 
of the third day of our world's annals, in thoughts 
worthy of the inspiration under which he wrote. 
' Thou coveredst it (the earth) with the deep, as 
with a garment : the waters stood above the 
mountains. At thy rebuke they fled : at the voice 
of thy thunder they hasted away. They go up by 
the mountains ; they go down by the vallies, unto 
the place which thou hast founded for them. 
Thou hast set a bound that they may not pass 
over, that they turn not again to cover the earth.' 
• The waters,' says Bishop Home, ' fled at the 
Almighty word, like the scattered remains of 
a routed army ; from the heights of mountains 
whither they had ascended, they sunk down into 
the vallies ; from the vallies they retired into the 
bed of the ocean, and a part of them descended 
from thence into the great deep thatlieth beneath.' 
The poet of creation has given us a paraphrase of 
Moses' and of David's words, in the supposed 
intercourse between Adam and 'Raphael, the 
affable Archangel.' 



20 CREATION. 

when God said, 
c Be gathered now, ye waters, under heav'n 
Into one place, and let dry land appear.' 
Immediately the mountains huge appear 
Emergent, and their broad bare backs upheave 
Into the clouds, their tops ascend the sky ; 
So high as heav'd the tumid hills, so low 
Sunk down a hollow bottom, broad and deep, 
Capacious bed of waters : thither they 
Hasted with glad precipitance, uproll'd 
As drops on dust conglobing from the dry ; 
Part rise in crystal wall, or ridge direct, 
For haste ; such flight the grand command impress'd, 
On the swift floods. As armies at the call 
Of trumpet (for of armies thou hast heard) 
Troop to their standard, so the wat'ry throng, 
Wave rolling after wave, where way they found, 
If steep, with torrent rapture, if through plain, 
Soft ebbing ; nor withstood them rock or hill, 
But they, or under ground, or circuit wide 
With serpent error wand'ring, found their way, 
And on the washy ooze deep channels wore ; 
Easy, ere God had bid the ground be dry, 
All but within those banks, where rivers now 
Stream, and perpetual draw their humid train. 
The dry land earth, and the great receptacle 
Of congregated waters he call'd seas. 

" Even Jonah, in his hour of peril, when the die 
was cast, and the lot fell upon him, realized to his 
reviving faith the divine origin of the waters, and 
avowed his belief of it amongst the idolatrous 
mariners. ' I fear the Lord God of heaven, who 



•CREATION. 21 

hath made the sea and the dry land/ Penitent 
for his heinous sin, and meekly submissive to its 
punishment, he evidently felt relief from the con- 
sideration, that as God had made the sea, as well 
as the dry land, though he might be cast into its 
vast abyss, he should not be cast out of the 
Almighty's hand. The mariners cried every man 
to his god ; but it is very plain, that they ex- 
perienced not the composure enjoyed by the guilty 
but repentant prophet, as he stood upon the brink 
of the vessel ; for they knew not the Creator of 
the waves on which they were tossed. An ac- 
knowledgment of the same import entered into the 
adoring prayer of the first Christian church, when 
threatened by their foes. ' They lift up their 
voice to God with one accord, and said, Lord, 
thou art God, which hast made heaven, and earth, 
and the sea, and all that in them is : — and now, 
Lord, behold their threatenings.' Similar also 
was the form of the oath sworn by the Apocalyptic 
angel in the hearing of St. John. ' The angel, 
which I saw stand upon the sea and upon the 
earth, lifted up his hand to heaven, and sware by 
Him that liveth for ever and ever, who created 
heaven, and the things that therein are ; and the 
earth, and the things that therein are ; and the 
sea, and the things which are therein, that there 
should be time no longer.' It was to this fact — 
this first principle of religion, but of which, it 



22 CREATION. 

seems, the feeble mind of man could not inform 
or assure itself, save through the medium of a 
revelation from God, — that St. Paul directed the 
attention of the Pagans of Lystra ; and even the 
brevity of the moral code admits this recognition 
into its fourth article. Nor is it one of the least 
advantages we derive from the light reflected upon 
us by divine revelation, that as believers our minds 
are at rest upon this interesting and important 
point. Tradition but feebly pointed the minds of 
the wisest Pagans to the true original of the 
universe ; and their reason as feebly grasped ' this 
plank from the wreck of paradise, thrown on the 
shores of idolatrous Greece' and Rome. Let us 
be thankful that we can look abroad upon our 
favourite prospects, and feel no doubt whence all 
we see came into being. The various schemes 
of ' philosophy, falsely so called/ could never 
account for the creation of one drop of this ocean 
that is dashing at our feet. The pupil of nature 
in vain sat from year to year in her school, and 
sought for satisfaction at her lips upon the nume- 
rous questions that arose in his mind. 2 Those 
lips were sealed, or opened only in the utterance 
of oracles ever dubious, and often false. The dis- 
ciple of Revelation, on the other hand, whether he 

2 It is said, that Aristotle, the Greek Natural and Moral Philo- 
sopher, drowned himself in the Euripus, because he could not find 
out the cause of its flux and reflux. 



CREATION. 23 

occupies the seat of the learned, or is the way- 
faring man, and untaught in the wisdom of this 
world, while meditating on the wide field of nature, 
catches and echoes back the song of angels, who, 
casting their crowns before the throne of God, 
exclaim, ' Thou art worthy, O Lord, to receive 
glory, and honour, and power; for thou hast 
created all things, and for thy pleasure they are, 
and were created.' 

Redemption was creation more sublime, 

and redemption is to be the cardinal theme of 
ransomed sinners in time and in eternity. But 
creation is not to be lost sight of when we would 
exalt our views of His eternal power and Godhead, 
who is equally the author of both, and from both 
derives a vast revenue of glory. ' When man 
was first formed, creation was his book, and God 
was his preceptor. The elements were so many 
letters, by means of which, when rightly understood 
and put together, the wisdom, power, and good- 
ness of the great Creator became legible to him. — 
Happy the times when all knowledge thus lay in 
one volume ; when the pursuit of wisdom was 
attended by pleasure, and followed by devotion ! — 
The raptures with which the penmen of the Holy 
Scriptures expatiate upon the perfections of God, 
as displayed in the creation, are well known. And 
could we bring our minds habitually into the same 



24 CREATION. 

train of thinking, every walk we take would begin 
with admiration, and end with praise. We should 
always, upon such occasions, think what the 
Psalmist has so finely expressed, after a survey of 
the heavens above and the earth beneath. — ' O 
Lord, how manifold are thy works ! in wisdom 
hast thou made them all : the earth is full of thy 
riches ! ? And who, that looks around him, from 
the delightful place where we now are, can forbear 
to add, ' So is this great and wide sea also ! ' For 
of this truth let us never be unmindful, that won- 
derful as the sea is in itself, and beneficial as it is 
to the sons of men, all its wonders and all its 
benefits reflect glory and honour on Him who 
formed and poured it abroad. — Let us remember, 
that ' the sea is his, and he made it/ Such an 
object, continually before our eyes, invites and 
demands our attention ; and religion calls upon us 
to search out the riches of divine power and good- 
ness contained in it/ 3 

Let us, therefore, frequently allow our minds so 
to meditate on the wisdom, power, and goodness 
of Jehovah in the production of the watery world, 
that the roar of its stormy billows, and the mur- 
murs of its calmly rippling wave, may echo to our 
ear, ' The sea is his, and he made it ! ' All the 
united sagacity and power of intelligent creatures 

3 Bishop Home's Sermon on the Sea. 



CREATION. 25 

could not give existence to a single drop of water. 
How worthy of admiration, then, is the omnipo- 
tence, whose fiat created the seas, especially when 
we behold creative and redeeming power clothing 
the same arm. To redeem and restore a lost world 
was not less the exclusive work of Deity, than to 
give being to that world. ' I looked, and there 
was none to help : and I wondered that there was 
none to uphold : therefore mine own arm brought 
salvation unto me.' 

" Nor is it an uninteresting association, con- 
nected with prospects like this now before us/' 
said Julia, interrupting a short and thoughtful 
silence which followed the concluding sentence of 
her father's paper, " that, as we trace in Sacred 
History the blessed steps of our Saviour's most 
holy life, it seems that the shores of seas or large 
lakes were his frequent resort. There our Lord, 
often, in solitude, found a welcome retreat from 
the fatigues of his ministry, and experienced, in the 
contemplation of his own works, a measure of the 
complacent delight which he felt when they first 
came from his hands. How replete with gladden- 
ing and elevating considerations is the fact, on 
which papa has dwelt, that creation and redemp- 
tion are the labours of the same hands. ' For of 
him, and through him, and to him, are all things. 
To whom be glory for ever. Amen. ,,, 
c 



26 CREATION. 

"Under what lasting obligations/' added Charles 
Willoughby, " has our sainted mother laid my 
brother, my sister, and myself, by the early care 
she took to establish in our minds a connexion 
between every object of sense and the idea of a 
great First Cause. It was her custom to simplify 
to our youthful understandings the primary prin- 
ciples of what has been called natural religion ; 
although, as she used to say, there is not a single 
principle of truth, but what owes its promulgation 
to the oracles of God. Her main and ultimate 
object, however, was to win our hearts to the 
Lord. It was redeeming love, therefore, as sur- 
passing in wonder, and in its claims upon our 
regard, both creative and preserving goodness, that 
she chiefly delighted to spread before our eyes, 
and to connect in our thoughts with all the 
beauties and sublimities of nature. How often 
did she hold our minds chained by the irresistible 
force of maternal eloquence, while from some 
inland eminence, or some tall cliff that overlooked 
the deep, she taught us to admire, to love, and to 
adore the Saviour. Our hearts would sometimes 
overflow, when that dear mother reminded us, that 
the hands which ' stretched out the heavens as a 
curtain' over the seas and dry land, were nailed in 
weakness and agony to the cross, that, by the mys- 
terious virtue of the accursed tree, they might 
acquire the more than divine power to save us 



CREATION. 27 

from the lake of fire. For, as she was wont to 
say, it is more than the work of omnipotence itself 
to save an unransomed slave of sin and Satan." 

" And I think," said Miss Willoughby, " that 
I heard Edwin the other day repeating some 
verses, which mamma gave each of us to learn. 
He will, I doubt not, recite them now ; for they are 
not altogether irrelevant to our subject." 

" With great pleasure :" — replied Edwin, " they 
are these." 

My God ! thy boundless Love I praise : 
How bright on high its glories blaze ! 

How sweetly bloom below ! 
It streams from thine eternal throne ; 
Through heav'n its joys for ever run, 

And o'er the earth they flow ! 

'Tis Love that paints the purple morn, 
And bids the clouds, in air upborne, 

Their genial drops distil ; 
In every vernal beam it glows, 
And breathes in every gale that blows, 

And glides in every rill. 

It robes in cheerful green the ground, 
And pours its flow'ry beauties round, 

Whose sweets perfume the gale ; 
Its beauties richly spread the plain, 
The blushing fruit, the golden grain, 

And smile on every vale. 



28 CREATION. 

But in thy gospel see it shine, 
With grace and glories more divine, 

Proclaiming sins forgiv'n ! 
There, Faith, bright cherub, points the way, 
To realms of everlasting day, 

And opens all her heav'n ! 

Then let the love that makes me blest, 
With cheerful praise inspire my breast, 

And ardent gratitude ; 
And all my thoughts and passions tend 
To Thee, my Father and my Friend, 

My soul's eternal good ! 

Dart from thine own celestial flame, 
One vivid beam, to warm my frame 

With kindred energy ! 
Mark thine own image on my mind, 
And teach me to be good and kind, 

And love and bless like Thee ! 



CHAPTER IV. 



MONODY. 



What had passed between his children, 
evidently affected Mr. Willoughby ; and he now 
stole away from the company, to conceal from 
them, while he indulged to himself, the mingled 
emotions which had been awakened in his breast. 
He had lately lost the mother of his children — the 
partner of his life; and one object he had in view 
in visiting the coast, was to relieve the sorrow, 
which he could not, and he wished not, entirely to 
throw off. He felt, that there was much in the 
bereaving dispensation to detach him from earth ; 
and the assurance, that the beloved companion of 
more than twenty of his best years had joined the 
palm-bearing host of the redeemed, frequently 
drew him into solitude, to meditate on the blessed- 
ness of them that die in the Lord. On this occa- 
sion he strayed awhile among the rocks, and 
yielded his thoughts to the anticipation of a day, 
when with her he hoped to expatiate, to infinitely 
greater advantage, on the whole ocean of created 



30 MONODY. 

being. Nor was it merely a fond and undecaying 
attachment to the departed, strong as that attach- 
ment was, that led him confidently to expect that 
he should recognize and renew a sacred inter- 
course with her, when they both should be " as the 
angels which are in heaven." He felt satisfied, 
to the exclusion of even the shadow of a doubt, 
that the uniform tenor of the evidence inferible 
from the Holy Scriptures, was in favour of such a 
personal recognition. It is, indeed, he fully knew, 
and he rejoiced to know, the presence of the Sa- 
viour, which constitutes the felicity of redeemed 
and glorified souls. But, then, as we are permitted 
and enjoined to cherish upon earth many degrees 
of affection towards other objects, in subordination 
to our supreme love of Him, " who is altogether 
lovely, and the chiefest among ten thousand," so 
Mr. Willoughby concluded, that it was quite 
allowable to intermingle with our anticipations of 
beholding the glory of the Lord, the hope of 
renewing the holy friendships of earth, in the 
holier regions of heaven. He was accustomed to 
say, in illustration of his sentiments on this point, 
that the sun loses nothing of its splendour in the 
eye of a lover of nature, although ten thousand 
objects, which are beautified by its beams, are 
also esteemed and admired. Mr. Willoughby did 
not rejoin the party till they were on their way 
homewards. He had sat down upon a ledge of 



MONODY. 31 

rock, and written the following lines, which he 
afterwards gave to his daughter, saying, as he 
placed them in her hands, " It is an unstudied 
effusion of your father's heart, my Emily : and I 
know that you value even a trifle, if it reminds 
you of your dear mother." Miss Willoughby 
showed them, in the evening, to the Hamiltons, 
when her father and her brother Charles had 
gone to visit an invalid friend. 

MONODY. 

It is not solitude, to roam the shore, 
To hear the curlew's cry — the billows roar ; 
To read, upon the cliff's deep-graven page, 
The hieroglyphics of the world's long age ; 
The sapphire-pillar'd heavens above to scan, 
Embracing earth and ocean in their span ; 
The lines of beauty in a shell to trace, 
And watch the sportings of the finny race ; 
Though never human foot save thine is near, 
Nor friendship's tender voice salute thine ear ; 
If home, though distant far, is not bereft 
Of life's chief solace : if thou art not left 
A lonely pilgrim 'midst the waste of life, 
The prey of anguish, and the bosom's strife. 

I am that desolate ! — yet not alone, 
For I can meet thee at our Father's throne. 
Thine is the song of praise, and mine the prayer, 
That I may trace thy steps and meet thee there. 

I bend my ear — I listen at the gate, 
Which gave thee entrance to thy blissful state. 



I 



32 MONODY. 

Hark ! — is it thine ? — the voice I heard among 

The pealing anthems of the ransom'd throng ? 

'Tis thine ! — 'tis thine ! — the same sweet voice, that oft 

Join'd with my own on earth : — but now more soft, 

More lovely, yet more loud, it rises higher, 

And rivals angels in their full-ton'd choir. 

Ye seraphs, station'd at the bright pearl gate, 4 

In sun-beam robes, arriving saints t' await, 

And bid them enter, one brief moment place 

The portal wide, or e'en a little space. 

This feeble sight invigorate, to gaze 

On shining crowds, undazzled by the blaze 

Of light ethereal ! Point her out to me, 

Ye seraphs ! — spare your offices — 'tis she ! 

My * * * * I clearly trace her 'midst the throng, 

As bright in glory, as she's sweet in song. 

I know her still — distinguish'd from the rest 

Of myriads sainted, and for ever blest. 

Resplendent though her crown — her robe, though 

white 
As never earthly garb — a robe of light — 
'Tis the same soul that mingled once with mine, 
In sentiment, and love, and hope divine. 

But ah ! how chang'd ! Thy tears are wip'd away : 
Thy night has ended in eternal day. 
Thou smil'st as angels smile. Thy woes, thy fears 
Are gone for ever, with the fleeting years 
Of thy terrestrial life — like clouds that vest 
The Alpine mountain top, 'till on its breast 
Pours from the orient sky a flood of gold : 
Then mists and darkling clouds away are roll'd, 

4 Every several gate was of one pearl. Rev. xxi. 21. 



MONODY. 33 

Exhal'd and lost in air. Now all is peace, 
For thou art where all angry tempests cease. 
O turn thine eye, one little moment, down ! 
O look on me ! on me, of late thine own : — 
And still thine own : — for I can ne'er resign 
The sacred privilege that made thee mine. 
We yet are one, in endless union join'd, 
Indissolubly one, in heart and mind. 
Death cannot sever ties so firm as this : 
One here in woe, we shall he one in bliss. 
'Till then, O come in angel form, to lead 
Our weary footsteps, and increase our speed ; 
To follow in thy track, yet mark'd with light, 
As late thou left it in the shades of night. 
On ministering errands oft descend : 
Still be thy husband's and thy children's friend, 
As erst thou wast ; and, in life's darkest hours, 
When danger threatens and the tempest low'rs, 
Uphold our feet, lest haply 'gainst a stone 
We dash and fall. 

Saviour ! at thy throne 
Asham'd I bow — asham'd I bend my knee, 
To give my heart to her, and not to Thee : 
O take it now, since thou hast ta'en her hence, 
And fill it, Lord, with love and penitence ! 
For this perhaps I feel the deathful stroke; 
For this perhaps my faithless heart is broke ; 
Come, then, and heal it, that it e'er may be 
A consecrated seat for none but Thee. 

Farewell, blest saint ! — a short adieu, I trust : 
Angels, your vigils keep around her dust — 
Her sacred dust, that lies in holy ground, 
Where solitude and silence reign around : 
c2 



34 MONODY. 

Save when the bird of night her widow'd song 
Pours in elegiac strains, the groves among : 
Or Zephyr, gliding on the ev'ning breeze, 
Sighs mournfully amidst the waving trees :- — 
Or when Devotion chimes her Sabbath-bell :•= — 
Or Death again tolls deep his iron knell : — 
Or life's vain joys demand the blithesome peal, 
That boasts of extasies which few can feel : — 
There rests her dust, beneath our village tow'r. 
Waiting in guarded sleep the destin'd hour, 
When, wak'd by seraphs, and reform'd, 'twill rise, 
To join its sister spirit in the skies. 

Peace to this spot! — its lonely rocks and waves 
Have soothed my soul, while o'er the field of graves, 
Far distant, fond imagination rov'd, 
And hover'd o'er that tomb so mourn'd — so lov'd. 
Roll on— roll on, ye ebbing — flowing tides, 
Ye measurers of time : my spirit chides 
Your tardy changes, panting for the hour, 
When your last wave shall ripple to the shore, 
And time, and sin, and woe shall be no more. 

" I am reminded/' said Edwin Willoughby, 
with an affectionate sigh, which yet sought con- 
cealment, '* of Cowper's incomparable lines, on 
the receipt of his mother's picture/' particularly 
where he thus addresses his departed parent : — 

Thou, — as a gallant bark from Albion's coast 
(The storms all weather'd and the ocean cross'd) 
Shoots into port at some well-haven'd isle, 
Where spices breathe, and brighter seasons smile, 



MONODY. 35 

There sits quiescent on the floods, that show 
Her beauteous form reflected clear below, 
While airs impregnated with incense play- 
Around her, fanning light her streamers gay ; — 
So thou, with sails how swift ! hast reach'd the shore, 
Where tempests never beat nor billows roar. 

Conversation then succeeded on the state of 
deceased saints, and the various lights of Scripture 
were employed to elucidate the nature of their 
bliss and glory, who, being delivered from the 
burden of the flesh, are in joy and felicity. The 
evening thus passed delightfully, though it seemed 
to reach its close too soon. The two families 
separated, not as worldlings are wont to separate, 
palled to satiety with the insipidities of heartless 
intercourse; but mentally refreshed, and more 
affectionately attached than before. 



CHAPTER V. 



THE SEA IS HIS. 



When the two families met on the subsequent 
morning, at the Rev. Mr. Hamilton's breakfast 
table, Theophilus, with a somewhat arch smile, 
remarked, that he suspected one of the Muses had 
met and accompanied Edwin in his morning ram- 
ble ; for that, having unintentionally and unseen 
passed by Edwin's favourite haunt, he had heard 
him reading over to himself some lines, which, 
from the pencil and scraps of paper beside him, 
he conceived must be original. " I had too much 
honesty," said he " though I cannot say that I had 
no struggle with my curiosity, to stop and listen to 
our young poet. But, if it will not materially 
interfere with the employments of our dejeune, 
I will request him to favour us with his matin 
exercise." 

" It is hardly fair," replied Edwin, " to take 
me thus by surprise. You shall, however, have 



THE SEA IS HIS. 37 

them, Theophilus, just as they are, in the rough, 
like the sea-weed, which my sister takes from the 
little basins in the rocks, before it is pricked out 
and arranged by her hand. My humble lines 
were suggested by the subject of Mr. Hamilton's 
paper on the words of David, 

THE SEA IS HIS, AND HE MADE IT. 

The sea is His : He made it, and he keeps, 
Whether it wakes in storms, or calmly sleeps 
'Neath summer's torrid blaze and cloudless skies, 
And mirrors on its breast their glowing dies. 
In the vast hollow of his boundless hand 
He holds the waters, and, at his command, 
Flow and retire the ever-changing tides : 
The ebbing wave returns, the flood subsides. 
He, as an infant in the mother's hands, 
Swathes its vast bulk in adamantine bands ; 
And when, by tempests rous'd, it foams and roars, 
Restrains its fury by th' unyielding shores. 
He, where through lucid deeps the day-star smiles, 
Decks its broad bosom with ten-thousand isles, 
Whose emerald rocks, reflected on the wave, 
Far down seem pointing to the seaman's grave. 
He strews with gems the ocean's cavern'd ways, 
Where the whale slumbers and the dolphin plays ; 
And where, committed to their faithful trust, 
The waters bleach the treasur'd bones and dust 
Of many a sea-tomb'd saint, one day to rise, 
And hail his Saviour's advent in the skies. 
He, when along the surface of the main, 
Like armies marshall'd on the tented plain, 



38 



THE SEA IS HIS. 



Embattled navies dare the awful fight, 

TV unseen and silent witness of the sight, 

Sits on his cloud-encurtain'd throne, and gives 

Death to the death-doom'd — life to him that lives. 

He, when, forlorn, the ship-boy lifts his eye 

From some lone rock, nor help, nor hope is nigh, 

Hears 'mid conflicting storms his feeble prayer, 

And bids his angels timely succour bear, 

To save the almost victim of despair. 

He, when fast hurried toward the dread lee-shore, 

Affrighted mariners his aid implore, 

Oft by some friendly gale diverts tbeir course, 

And saves them from the death-wing'd tempest's force. 

The sea is His, in all its varied forms, 
Its rocks — its calms — its billows-— and its storms. 
Nor less, in all its changeful scenes, is life 
Beneath his eye, its days of peace or strife. 
And who is He, whom winds and waves obey, 
While universal nature owns his sway ? 
My Father and my Saviour ! at whose will 
The fiercer storms of life are hush'd and still. 
O why then, faithless, shall I doubt or fear ? 
The.cov'nant God of sea and earth is near ! 



CHAPTER VI 



THE EVE OF THE SABBATH. 



On the Saturday evening the Hamiltons were 
alone, and as they were seated round the table, 
Mrs. Hamilton produced and read a short paper, 
which, in the following week, was handed to their 
friends, 

ON PREPARATION FOR THE SABBATH. 

" I have been as much humbled, and, I trust, 
profited, as I have been delighted with a little 
book, entitled, ' The Last Day of the Week.' I 
first met with it in the cottage of our gardener, 
Robin, and borrowed it of his wife, who evidently 
seemed to have derived good from its perusal. Since 
then I have distributed many copies of it, not only 
amongst the poor, but in the families of our more 
respectable parishioners. The object of the little 



40 THE EVE OF THE SABBATH. 

publication is, to promote such an attention to 
the duties of the last day of the week, as shall 
prove a suitable preparation for the first day of 
the week : and after I had given it a first reading, 
I could not help following the example set me in 
its 11th page. 'When the close of the day ar- 
rived, I knelt down under a solemn impression 
of the force of God's commandments, and the 
solemnity of the conclusion of the last day of the 
week; and addressed my supplications to the Lord, 
that he would put the finishing stroke, which 
would sanctify my soul, and cleanse away the sin 
of the week ; and prepare my soul, by his Spirit, 
for the duties of the Sabbath — that I might re- 
member the Sabbath to keep it holy ; so beginning 
that week in his name, which would soon again 
end in the last day of the week. And, O my 
God, I cried, so be thou my guide, and the God 
of my salvation, that when the last day of my life 
may come, I may be found to have finished my 
course in faith, and to be ready, through thy grace 
and mercy, by thy own finished work of the re- 
demption of sinners, to enter upon that eternal 
sabbath, which is for ever enjoyed in thy holy 
presence. I felt a quiet repose in God ; a sweet 
preparation for the Lord's day; and with my 
Saviour's triumphant cry on the cross — It is 
finished ! fell asleep.' 



THE EVE OF THE SABBATH. 41 

" I have often since reflected on the subject, and 
consider it one to which I cannot too seriously 
call the attention of our whole family. The wise 
author of the Apocryphal Book of Ecclesiasticus 
has well said, ' My son, if thou come to serve the 
Lord, prepare thy soul for temptation/ This 
admonitory aphorism frequently recurs to my mind 
on the approach or arrival of the consecrated day 
of rest. I have good reason to expect that Satan 
will then be busy in doing mischief to my soul. 
For him these days too rapidly return, because 
they are days of triumph to his great adversary, 
and ' victory ! victory !' is the reiterated shout of 
the heavenly hosts over one, and another, and 
another captive, rescued from his tyranny, and 
gifted with the liberty of the sons of God. The 
strong man is therefore on the alert to keep his 
goods in peace. We may also well imagine that 
his malignity and rage are greatly excited, when 
he beholds the former slaves of his will thronging 
round the throne of the Eternal, in lowly adoration 
and ardent love. He watches every opportunity, 
which the outward circumstances, or besetting 
sins and infirmities of the saints may proffer, to 
ensnare and annoy those, over every one of whom, 
as over the Arabian Patriarch, there yet hangs 
this authoritative prohibition, ' Behold, all that 
he hath is in thy power ; only upon himself put 
not forth thine hand/ The more perfectly the 



42 THE EVE OF THE SABBATH. 

Sabbath is consecrated to its high and holy pur- 
poses, at the greater distance is Satan kept from 
our souls. He, therefore, practises the most crafty 
and subtle ingenuity in the contrivance of in- 
numerable schemes, to lead us into a partial 
desecration of at least a part of this blessed day. 
If he cannot altogether immerse the believer's 
raiment in the Stygian lake, he will make every 
effort to stain and defile it. Our wily foe avails 
himself of numberless minute, and apparently 
trifling things, in our domestic and personal cir- 
cumstances, to distract our thoughts, and to fritter 
away, if not to engross, our most precious moments. 
It should, then, be our prayer and study, to guard 
against his devices ; and one most effectual pre- 
caution is, to consider and use the last day of 
the week as w 7 hat the Jews used to call the day 
preceding their high festivals, — the ' day of the 
preparation.' 

" The spirit of prayer, indeed, should rest upon 
us at all seasons, and in the absence of all religious 
forms. But the recurrence of special seasons, and 
special duties, calls for special acts of supplication. 
It may, therefore, be desirable, and prove highly 
advantageous, to regard Saturday in relation to 
Sunday, as we regard the precincts of a temple in 
relation to that temple — holy, if not most holy ; 
and to be fervent in prayer, and frequent in 
ejaculatory supplication, that we may be enabled 



THE EVE OF THE SABBATH. 43 

so to arrange, and forward, and complete the work 
of our six days, that we may enjoy the Sabbath in 
its real character, as a day of holy rest. To the 
neglect of such foresight and arrangement we must 
attribute the kind of noisy bustle, often too visible 
in religious families, on the morning of the con- 
secrated day — that day so beautifully, though 
quaintly described, by our pious Herbert,— 

The couch of time, care's balm and bay I 

" The lamentable, and most censurable custom, 
of rising at a later hour, and the having to get 
every thing in readiness for going to the house of 
God, is frequently seen to throw an entire family 
into confusion, and so to embitter the tempers of 
some, if not of all, that the haste, and bustle, and 
even clamour, which prevail, form an affecting 
contrast to the scene pictured by the prophet — 
\ Many people shall go and say, Come ye, and 
let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, 
to the house of the God of Jacob ; and he will 
teach of his ways, and we will walk in his 
paths/ 

" How much, if not the whole of this evil might 
be prevented by a solicitous care to leave nothing 
to be done on the Sabbath, which can be done on 
the preceding day ; so that the only care of that 
blessed season may be, not ' the outward adorning 



44 THE EVE OF THE SABBATH. 

of plaiting the hair, and of wearing of gold, and 
of putting on of apparel ;' but that we may be 
found ' clothed with humility/ and ' putting on 
the Lord Jesus Christ, not making provision for 
the flesh, to fulfil the lusts thereof/ How desirable 
is it, that, contented with and thankful for simple 
food, and that as far as possible prepared on the 
previous day, we may on the Sabbath especially 
hunger and thirst after righteousness, and feed 
upon Jesus, the living bread, which came down 
from heaven. 

" Such household arrangements, as I have hinted 
at, are peculiarly needful at a place of public resort 
like this, where the force of example is great ; 
where the moral influence of visitors upon the 
stated inhabitants is extensive and lasting ; and 
where Christian families, so far from relaxing the 
sacred discipline and holy habits of their pro- 
fession, ought to make it their aim and prayer, 
that they may leave a blessing behind them — even 
a savour of that precious Redeemer's name, who is 
all in all to them who know, and love, and serve 
him. With these views, as the mistress of a 
family, I make a point of never walking out on 
the Saturday evening, unless I am conscious of 
having set my house in order for the approaching 
weekly festival : nor can I retire to enjoy the 
rest of the week's last night, unless I can with 
some humble confidence affirmatively answer the 



THE EVE OF THE SABBATH. 45 

query, Have I done the whole of my preparation- 
work^ 

Sweet day of rest! for thee I'd wait, 
Emblem and earnest of a state 

Where saints are fully blest ! 
For thee I'd look, for thee I'd sigh ! 
I'd count the days till thou art nigh, 

Sweet day of sacred rest !" 

Louisa and Julia thanked their mother for these 
suggestions, and cheerfully promised to make it 
their endeavour to further her design, and to 
promote through the household a suitable atten- 
tion to the duty of making preparation for the 
Sabbath. 



CHAPTER VII 



SABBATH BY THE SEA. 



Few are insensible of the soothing and even 
exhilarating influence of a calm and bright Sabbath 
morning on the sea coast. The soft murmuring 
of the waves and woods ; the smooth and placid 
aspect of the waters and the heavens ; and the 
general tranquillity which pervades the inland 
scene, conspire to aid the devotional temper of the 
Christian's soul : nor, while so many external 
hindrances occur to interrupt the desired tenor of 
his thoughts and feelings, is he indifferent to, or 
unthankful for, external assistances. He well 
knows, indeed, that religion consists not of out- 
ward observances, or of doctrinal notions, or of 
tasteful sensibilities. " The sacredness of the 
hallowed day, and all the decencies of its observa- 
tion, may engage the affections of him who loves 
to walk in the footsteps of his Father ; and every 
recurring Sabbath may bring to his bosom the 
charm of its regularity and its quietness. Religion 
has its accompaniments ; and in these there may 



SABBATH BY THE SEA. 47 

be a something to soothe and to fascinate, even in 
the absence of the appropriate influences of reli- 
gion. — The love of established decencies, is not 
religion. The charm of all that sentimentalism, 
which is associated with many of its solemn and 
affecting services, is not religion. They may 
form the distinct folds of its accustomed drapery : 
but they do not, any, or all of them put together, 
make up the substance of the thing itself. — They 
are, in truth, as different the one from the other, 
as a taste for the grand and the graceful of scenery 
differs from the appetite of hunger ; and the one 
may both exist and have a most intense operation 
within the bosom of that very individual, who 
entirely disowns, and is entirely disgusted with 
the other. What ! must a man be converted, ere 
from the most elevated peak of some Alpine wil- 
derness, he become capable of feeling the force 
and the majesty of those great lineaments, which 
the hand of nature has thrown around him, in the 
varied forms of precipice and mountain, and the 
wave of mighty forests, and the rush of sounding 
waterfalls, and distant glimpses of human territory, 
and pinnacles of everlasting snow, and the sweep 
of that circling horizon which folds in its ample 
embrace the whole of this noble amphi-theatre ? 
Tell me, whether, without the aid of Christianity, 
or without a particle of reverence for the only 
name given under heaven whereby men can be 



48 SABBATH BY THE SEA. 

saved, a man may not kindle at such a perspective 
as this, into all the raptures, and into all the 
movements of a poetic elevation ; and be able to 
render into the language of poetry, the whole of 
that sublime and beauteous imagery which adorns 
it : aye, and as if he were treading on the confines 
of a sanctuary which he has not entered, may he 
not mix up with the power and enchantment of 
his description, such allusions to the presiding 
genius of the scene ; or to the still but animating 
spirit of the solitude ; or to the speaking silence 
of some mysterious character which reigns through- 
out the landscape ; or, in fine, to thatEternal Spirit, 
who sits behind the elements he has formed, and 
combines them into all the varieties of a wide and 
a wondrous creation ; might not all this be said 
and sung with an emphasis so moving, as to spread 
the colouring of piety over the pages of him, who 
performs thus well upon his instrument ; and yet, 
the performer himself have a conscience unmoved 
by a single warning of God's actual communica- 
tion, and the judgment unconvinced, and the fears 
unawakened, and the life unreformed by it ? " 

Many remarks of a similar character with these 
were made, when the Hamiltons and Willoughbys 
met on their way to church, on the morning of the 
Sabbath. The morning was such as was above 
mentioned, and while our friends enjoyed the re- 
viving and animating influence of the scenery, they 



SABBATH BY THE SEA. 49 

affectionately intermingled observations of a spi- 
ritual character, which were adapted to raise their 
thoughts above all terrestrial beauties, and to fix 
their affections and expectations where supreme 
excellence, and true joys are to be found. Just as 
they were entering the field, or rather garden of 
graves, for the church-yard was kept in becoming 
order and decency, the Rev. Mr. Hamilton re- 
marked, " I once heard a venerable Clergyman 
give a simple and expressive definition of the 
religion of the gospel, which often recurs to my 
mind with much admonitory force and sweetness, 
when I am about to attend upon the means of 
grace. Let us all bear it on our minds through 
this morning's service, that we may realize the 
great end of religious ordinances. His definition 
was this : Religion is a derivation of life 
from the Lord Jesus Christ." With a train 
of thought to which this sentiment gave rise, the 
party entered the house of God, and using it in its 
appropriate character, they found it to be none 
other than the gate of heaven. Charles Wil- 
loughby took short-hand notes of the sermon, and 
afterwards wrote it out for the sick friend, whom 
he had visited on the Friday. 

THE SERMQN. 
Psalm civ. 1, 2, 3. 

Bless the Lord, O my soul : O Lord, my God, thou art very 
great : thou art clothed with honour and majesty. 

D 



50 SABBATH BY THE SEA. 

Who coverest thyself with light, as with a garment : who 
stretchest out the heavens like a curtain. 

Who layeth the beams of his chambers in the waters : who 
maketh the clouds his chariot : who walketh upon the wings of the 
wind. 

Who maketh his angels spirits ; his ministers a flaming fire. 

" This Psalm has been, with much propriety, 
styled a hymn for the Sabbath-day. It was probably 
used as such in the ancient services of the Jewish 
temple, and it is no less suited to the more spiritual 
services of the Christian church. It celebrates the 
divine attributes ' displayed in the creation of the 
universe, the destruction of the earth by the de- 
luge, and the restoration of beauty and order after 
that calamity; and describes the dependence of 
all nature, animated and vegetable, upon his pro- 
vidence, for sustenance and preservation. For 
regularity of composition, richness of imagery, 
sublimity of sentiment, and elegance and perspi- 
cuity of diction, it is, perhaps, the principal poem 
in the whole collection of these inspired songs. 
As there is no allusion in it to the Mosaic ritual, 
nor any mention of the deliverance of the Israelites 
from Egvpt, it should seem, that it was of an 
earlier age than the Exodus.' This conjecture of 
a learned prelate of our Church, may appear to 
derive some confirmation from a comparison be- 
tween this Psalm and many parts of the Book of 
Job, which are so similar, that it seems more than 
possible that their respective authors were cotem- 



SABBATH BY THE SEA. 51 

porary, if they may not be identified. It is not, 
however, either necessary or expedient to lengthen 
these preliminary remarks. The date, the writer, 
and other circumstances of any part of divine 
revelation are only of importance, as they may 
tend to illustrate the meaning, and the lessons we 
are to learn from it. For, as every drop of 
water in the neighbouring ocean is from the Crea- 
tor's hand, and has its part and office assigned it 
in the general mass, so ' all Scripture is given by 
inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, 
for reproof, for correction, for instruction in 
righteousness, that the man of God may be perfect, 
thoroughly furnished unto all good works/ May 
the Lord the Spirit vouchsafe his presence and 
blessing to the hearer and the preacher of his 
word, that it may at this season answer one or all 
of these sacred purposes. 

" Proceed we to meditate upon our proposed 
subject, as containing, in the first place, The 
Psalmist's apostrophe to his own soul; 
and in the second place, The Psalmist's adora- 
tion of Jehovah's majesty and glory. 

" I. The Psalmist's apostrophe to his 
own soul. ' Bless the Lord, O my soul ! ' We 
have a similarly abrupt and beautiful introduction 
to the preceding song of Zion. ' Bless the Lord, 
O my soul ! and all that is within me, bless his 
holv name ! ' Whenever we address ourselves to 



i 

52 SABBATH BY THE SEA. 

the service of God, whether in adoration, thanks- 
giving, or supplication, while the outward man 
maintains all that is decorous in appearance, the 
inner man is to be the principal agent in the 
solemn occupation. For religion is the business 
and proper employment of the soul ; and, as ' God 
is a Spirit, they who worship him, must worship 
him in spirit and in truth.' We are to bring with 
us to his altar, an understanding enlightened by 
his word, and reposing in faith on its testimony ; 
a will renewed and conformed to his good pleasure ; 
and affections prepared and disposed to love what 
he commands, and to desire what he promises. 
The language of our hearts, in every approach to 
the divine presence, should be that used by devout 
communicants at the table of the Lord. ' Here 
we offer and present unto Thee, O Lord, ourselves, 
our souls, and bodies, to be a reasonable, holy, and 
lively sacrifice unto Thee/ Thus the service of 
God is to be the act of the whole man. 

" We observe also, the proper object of reli- 
gious services, and to which the Psalmist directs 
the attention of his soul. That object is the Lord 
— the Jehovah of revelation — the self- exis- 
tent Three-one, Father, Son, and Holy 
Ghost — the source of all being, in the material 
and immaterial world, and especially of spiritual 
life — the Lord, revealing himself to man as able 
and willing to save to the uttermost, and known 



SABBATH BY THE SEA. 53 

to the believer as the Lord, his reconciled 
Father ; the Lord, his atoning and interceding 
Redeemer; the Lord, his Sanctifier and 
Comforter. It is only when viewed in this in- 
viting and endearing aspect, that the soul of man 
can lift itself up to God in such an act of adoring 
admiration and love, as that to which the writer 
of this Psalm here summons all his powers. That 
we may with joy thus contemplate the divine cha- 
racter, may the Holy Spirit help our infirmities, 
' shining into our hearts to give unto us the light 
of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face 
of Jesus Christ.' Many, who engage in religious 
observances, are wholly mistaken in the object of 
their worship. We may say to them, as our Lord 
did to the Samaritan woman, ' Ye worship ye 
know not what/ Their altar is that of the Athe- 
nians, To the unknown God. It is a mere 
name, or a notion, that they reverence ; not a spi- 
ritual being, whose presence is to be felt ; whose 
favour is better than life ; and whom to know, and 
love, and serve, is life eternal. They enjoy not 
the blessedness of the man who sets the Lord 
always before him, walking with him as his child, 
his disciple, his friend, his servant. 

" Others there are, and they not few in number, 
who differently err as to the object of their religious 
services. One man is, perhaps most unconsciously, 
himself his own object. He takes a kind of self- 



I 

54 SABBATH BY THE SEA. 

complacency in certain duties. They gratify the 
vanity of his heart. He imagines that he is doing 
some great thing : that he is amassing a store of 
merit, on the score of which he may draw largely 
on the divine bounty : that he is making out a 
righteousness of his own, which enables him to lift 
his head erect in the temple, with ' Lord, I thank 
thee I am not as other men are ! ' To promote the 
glory of God, never enters into his purposes. The 
self-justiciary is, unwittingly, himself the ultimate 
object of his religion. He is like a vain man, who, 
looking down upon the calm sea, when it reflects 
every object above and around, is wholly unaffected 
by the beauty and magnificence of the mirrored 
heavens, and gazes only upon the image of his 
own person. Another man, in pursuing a religious 
course, proposes human praise as his great end. 
It is not that he takes any genuine delight in the 
things of God : it is not that he has any relish for 
the sacred viands of the gospel feast : it is not 
that his affections are moved in lively gratitude 
towards the Lord. Nothing of this nature ever 
leads his feet to holy ground, or opens his lips in 
the accents of praise or supplication. Jesus would 
have numbered him with the persons, of whom he 
said, ' But all their works they do for to be seen 
of men/ Human praise — human approbation — is 
the end and aim of all they do, and ' Verily, I say 
unto you, they have their reward.' They catch at 



SABBATH BY THE SEA. 55 

the gale of man's applause, which floats along the 
surface of the ocean of life, and is finally lost in 
the tempest of wrath, in which all must founder 
and perish, who live and die regardless of Jehovah's 
solemn declaration : ' I will not give my glory to 
another.' 

" Religion, moreover, is a matter of personal 
interest and obligation. It cannot be discharged 
by proxy. The pilgrimage to Mount Zion — to the 
heavenly Jerusalem — cannot be performed by one 
for the benefit of another. It must be the act, 
the experience, the life of the individual. ' Bless 
the Lord, O my soul ! ' The writers of the sacred 
melodies are not deficient in the duty of exciting 
others to take up the Hallelujah chorus of the 
church. — Bat, at the same time, they rejoice to 
sustain their own part, and to maintain their own 
interest in a service, which is the source of per- 
sonal felicity to all the company of heaven — a 
service, ' like the incense of the Jewish priest, 
which, while it did honour to God, did likewise 
regale with its own fragrancy the person by whom 
it was offered.' 

" But the humble-minded Christian may ask, 
' Is it for me to bless the Most High God ? Is he 
not exalted above all blessing and praise ? ' He is. 
Yet he graciously condescends to require and 
accept the blessings and praises of angels. Yea, 
he condescends still lower, and deigns to command 



56 SABBATH BY THE SEA. 

and receive the blessings and praises of redeemed 
souls, not only in heaven, but also on earth. Still 
may the loud voice of the Levites be heard, ' as 
the voice of many waters/ saying, ' Stand up and 
bless the Lord your God for ever and ever ; and 
blessed be thy glorious name, which is exalted 
above all blessing and praise.' The propriety of 
this act, however, on the part of a creature, and 
even a sinful creature, will appear upon consider- 
ing, that the real import of the scriptural term to 
bless, ' as man doth God, or an inferior his supe- 
rior, is to bow, as it were, the knee to him, and so 
ascribe one's present or expected rest and happiness 
to him.' * Then,' replies the believer, ' let my 
soul habitually bow before Him, for most truly all 
I possess or expect of rest, and peace, and joy, is 
from Him, my Father, as its source ; and through 
Him, my Saviour, as its channel. I will extol 
thee, my God, O King : and I will bless thy name 
for ever and ever. Every day will I bless thee ; 
and I will praise thy name for ever and ever. 
Great is the Lord, and greatly to be praised : and 
his greatness is unsearchable.' 

" This not unaptly introduces the latter branch 
of our subject. 

" II. The Psalmist's adoration of Jeho- 
vah's majesty and glory. ' Lord my God, 
thou art very great : thou art clothed with honour 
and majesty. Who coverest thyself with light, 



SABBATH BY THE SEA. 57 

as with a garment :. who stretchest out the heavens 
like a curtain. Who layeth the beams of his 
chambers in the waters ; who maketh the clouds 
his chariot, who walketh upon the wings of the 
wind. Who maketh his angels spirits : his mi- 
nisters a flaming fire.' This is the Psalmist's 
adoring prayer, and we ourselves may improve 
and adopt it as an address to Jehovah, in his ex- 
alted character of the world's Creator, and in his 
glorious office of the world's Redeemer. Both 
creation and redemption, indeed, are the works of 
the same hand, and we are not to be surprised at 
the strong and beautiful analogies which are 
found to subsist between them. 

" L The contemplative and adoring believer, 
while surveying the universe, feels himself to be 
in the midst of the grand temple, or palace, of the 
King of kings, and Lord of lords. Before his 
attention, therefore, is arrested by created objects, 
his soul communes with the presiding and all- 
pervading Deity, and that with a solemn fami- 
liarity, which bespeaks his filial relation : ' O 
Lord, my God ! ' This familiarity, however, does 
not diminish his reverence, well remembering that 
the Lord has said, ' I will be sanctified in them 
that come nigh me.' He is deeply impressed by 
a sense of the Divine Majesty, not only in contrast 
with his own insignificance, but also with the 
comparative meanness of all other beings. ' Thou 
d2 



58 SABBATH BY THE SEA. 

art very great ! ' The greatness — the vast heights 
and depths, and lengths and breadths of the 
creation, elude the grasp of the strongest human 
intellect. What then can man say, when he comes 
to contemplate the majesty of God ? There is 
much sublimity in this simple expression : ' Thou 
art very great!' All comparison is out of the 
question, and unavailing, except as it may aid us 
in the enlargement and elevation of our souls. 
' For canst thou by searching find out God ? 
Canst thou find out the Almighty to perfection ? 
It is high as heaven ; what canst thou do ? — 
deeper than hell ; what canst thou know ? The 
measure thereof is longer than the earth, and 
broader than the sea ! ' Yet, blessed be his glo- 
rious name for ever, though he is so very great, he 
permits the believer in Jesus to adore him in self- 
appropriating language, ' O Lord, my God ! ' 

" To speak in terms borrowed from objects of 
the greatest earthly magnificence, the pomp and 
splendour of kings, the majesty of Jehovah is seen 
in the grandeur of his attire. His vesture is 
honour and majesty itself. The perfection of 
glory forms his robe, from which all the beauties 
and excellence of created things are but reflected 
beams. Light is the purest and brightest of his 
works, and that which is most nearly assimilated 
to the nature of a spirit ; and with this Jehovah 
covereth himself. Hence the many expressions of 



SABBATH BY THE SEA. 59 

Holy Scripture, employing this emblem, and de- 
scriptive of his nature and attributes. ' God is 
light :' ' the Father of lights :' ■ he dwells in 
light.' With this robe he invested himself, when 
he first came forth from his place to the work of 
creation ; when he led the march of his people 
through the wilderness ; and when he manifested 
his presence in the tabernacle of Moses, and the 
temple of Solomon. We see his glorious vesture, 
though we cannot behold his face. Blessed pri- 
vilege of heaven ! There we shall see him as he 
is, and the material light will no longer be the 
veil wherewith he covereth himself. ' The city 
hath no need of the sun, neither of the moon, to 
shine in it : for the glory of God doth lighten it, 
and the Lamb is the light thereof/ 

" The Divine Majesty is further displayed to 
our view in the grandeur of his pavilion. He 
stretcheth out the heavens like a curtain. They 
I form a magnificent canopy, or pavilion/ com- 
prehending within it the earth, and all the 
inhabitants thereof. It is enlightened by the 
celestial orbs suspended in it, as the holy taber- 
nacle was, by the lamps of the golden candlestick, 
and it was originally framed, erected, and furnished 
by its Maker, with more ease than man can con- 
struct and pitch a ' tent/ for his own temporary 
abode. Yet must this noble pavilion also be taken 
down ; these resplendent and beautiful heavens 






60 SABBATH BY THE SEA. 

must pass away, and come to an end. How 
glorious then shall be those ' new heavens, which 
are to succeed them, and to endure for ever ! r 
The watery masses which float in the atmosphere 
form the beams of his chambers, where he sitteth 
unseen, and beholdeth all things, both in heaven 
and in earth. There is his secret place, dark with 
excessive brightness. ' Though air and water are 
fluid bodies, yet, by the divine power, they are 
kept as tight and as firm in the place assigned 
them, as a chamber is with beams and rafters. 
How great a God is He, whose presence-chamber 
is thus reared, thus fixed !' Yet, there he heareth 
the prayer of the broken heart. Thence he sendeth 
down comfort and peace into the contrite spirit. 
Thither may we ascend by faith, and hold with 
him sweet fellowship. 

"But behold the Lord, as it were, issuing 
from his palace, and going forth to the accom- 
plishment of his great counsels ! — c making the 
clouds his chariot ; riding upon the wings of 
the wind ! ' Similarly sublime imagery is used 
in the 18th Psalm, to describe one great act of 
his providence. ' He bowed the heavens also, and 
came down : and darkness was under his feet. 
And he rode upon a cherub, and did fly : yea, he 
did fly upon the wings of the wind.' This occurred 
upon Mount Sinai, whither he came to deliver his 
■ fiery law/ With such an equipage, Jehovah 



SABBATH BY THE SEA. 61 

rides with swiftness, and strength, and far above 
the rage and power of his imbecile enemies, 
whenever he girds himself with the thunder of his 
power, and goes forth to the help of his people, 
and the overthrow of his foes. Infidel man may- 
ascribe the varied forms and movements of the 
clouds and winds to mere chance : but the believer 
sees a chariot of God in every cloud, — ' the chariots, 
of God are twenty thousand/ — and feels his 
presence in every 'wind,' as it passes by, and 
indicates his awful footstep. 

" It may further aid our feeble conceptions of 
the Divine Majesty, if we contemplate the retinue 
of Jehovah — the attendants of his throne, the 
companions of his progresses through the vast 
provinces of his empire, ' those ministers of his 
that do his pleasure.' Ten thousand times ten 
thousand, and thousands of thousands, even a 
u umber too great for human arithmetic to reckon, 
make up his train. He * maketh his angels spirits/ 
rapid in their movements as the swift winds that 
sweep the sea and land, — rapid and powerful as 
the flashes of electric fire that rend the clouds, the 
air, and the mountains, in sunder. The Apostle 
Paul quotes this verse in the exordium of his 
Epistle to the Hebrews, where he asserts the 
essential divinity of the Son of God, and claims 
for him upon earth the same divine honours that 
he receives in heaven, where the high mandate is 



i 



62 SABBATH BY THE SEA. 

heard and obeyed, ■ Let all the angels of God 
worship him.' 

" The works of God, both the productions of his 
creative hand, and the arrangements of his pro- 
vidence, reflect his majesty upon every eye, which 
possesses the faculty of spiritual vision. It is the 
natural atheism of our hearts, which allows us 
ever to survey and admire the grandeur of the 
heavens, the earth, or the sea, without exciting 
emotions, and calling forth language, like the 
Psalmist's. And if we felt as we ought amidst 
these scenes, or when we read the page of history, 
or trace back the course of our own lives, we could 
not but exclaim, ' O Lord, my God, thou art very 
great/ Yet, comparing what we see and know, 
with what remains concealed from us, we must, 
often feel the force of Job's words, ' Lo, these are 
parts of his ways : but how little a portion is heard 
of Him ! ' ' The Lord hath his way in the whirl- 
wind and the storm, and the clouds are the dust 
of his feet;' but Him, in his own majesty and 
glory, no human eye hath seen or can see. A 
day, however, is approaching, when the redeemed 
shall see him as he is, and be like him — when 
even the material body shall be changed into 
that mysterious form, called a spiritual body, and 
thereby be qualified to attend and enjoy the 
presence of the Lord. 

" 2. But, my dear brethren, it is in redemption 



SABBATH BY THE SEA. 63 

— in the redemption of a self-ruined world, that 
the majesty and glory of the Lord are most fully 
displayed. Here we are the most deeply interested. 
Here our adoration reaches its highest pitch. This 
claims our warmest gratitude, and our loudest 
praise. ' Father of all mercies — we bless thee for 
our creation, preservation, and all the blessings of 
this life ; but above all, for thine inestimable love 
in the redemption of the world, by our Lord Jesus 
Christ; for the means of grace, and for the hope 
of glory.' 

" It is in the majesty of redeeming power and 
love that the enlightened soul discovers the sub- 
limest exhibition of Jehovah's greatness, and feels 
an overpowering and yet delightful awe in sum- 
moning every power to his praise. If I view Him, 
says the lowly believer, merely as the God that 
made and ruleth in the earth, the sea, and the 
heavens, I am lost in the contemplation ; and 
though I may admit the truth of his omnipresence, 
all my philosophy cannot bring me to realize his 
nearness to me, nor inspire my anxious breast 
with peace. But in redemption I behold him 
near, and may rejoice in his presence. I can fall 
at his feet, and, absorbed in wonder and love, say, 
with consoling appropriation, ' O Lord, my God ! ' 
I find myself where Thomas lay, and exultingly, 
though humbly exclaim, ' My Lord ! and my 
God ! ' In the salvation of guilty and sinking 



64 SABBATH BY THE SEA. 

millions, and still more in the salvation of my own 
soul, as the guiltiest of all, I see and own him very 
great, far more than in the creation and govern- 
ment of innumerable worlds. It is in his advent 
and sufferings in the flesh, * clothed with the 
garments of salvation,' that Jehovah appears most 
splendidly arrayed f with honour and majesty.' 
I feel him to be great indeed, when, in his amazing 
love and condescension, he manifests himself to 
me by his Spirit and his word, saying, ' I am thy 
God ;' and when he claims me as the purchase of 
his blood, and says, ' Thou art mine.' 

" Immanuel covered himself with light as with 
a garment, when he left his ' high and holy place,' 
and came down to the work of re-Greating our 
fallen race. He assumed the name of light. 
Isaiah had spoken of the Messiah as ' the Light 
of Israel,' and had given this assurance unto Sion, 
* The Lord shall be unto thee an everlasting light, 
and thy God thy glory.' Jesus came in all the 
majesty, the beauty, and the purity of the light. 
The splendour, which shone round the shepherds 
in the fields of Bethlehem, was an emblem of the 
glory of the Lord, who at that hour was made 
flesh, and pitched his tent amongst us. Though 
Jesus in great part veiled his essential and me- 
diatorial glory in his human nature, and in the 
low estate to which he voluntarily submitted, yet 
in the real greatness of his character, in the mag- 



SABBATH BY THE SEA. 65 

nilicence of his miracles, in the purity of his 
conduct, and in the truth of his doctrines, he 
amply vindicated his claim to the title which he 
gave himself. I am the light of the world. 
Nor were times wanting, when the Sun of righte- 
ousness broke through the clouds which generally 
obscured his path, and when, as upon the mount 
of transfiguration, ' his face did shine as the sun, 
and his raiment was white as the light/ Such 
was his covering when he rose from the dead, 
and when he ascended into heaven. Such was 
the robe, in which the Prophet of the Apoca- 
lypse beheld him clothed, when, in a brighter 
vision than that vouchsafed to Isaiah, he ' saw his 
glory, and spake of him. , In such a vestment 
also Jehovah appears to the penitent soul, and 
powerfully applies his word : ' Arise, shine, for 
thy light is come, and the glory of the Lord is 
risen upon thee/ Jesus assimilates his people to 
himself. They are changed into the same image 
by the Spirit of the Lord. They put off the old 
man, which is corrupt according to the deceitful 
lusts, are renewed in the Spirit of their minds, 
and put on the new man, which, after God, is 
created in righteousness and true holiness. Jesus 
is to every believer in his name, the all-sufficient 
source of knowledge, purity, life, comfort, peace, 
and joy. Beloved brethren, is the Saviour thus 
the light of your souls? If he is, you have 



66 SABBATH BY THE SEA. 

nothing to fear amidst the gloom of the darkest 
affliction, nor even when you pass through the 
valley of the shadow of death. Now, clothed in 
his spotless righteousness, and hereafter made 

* like him/ in personal holiness, you shall ' walk 
with him in white/ when time, and sin, and 
death shall be no more. 

" The visible heavens, extending their vast tent 
over the earth, and comprehending those mag- 
nificent chambers whose beams rest upon the 
waters, appear to our view invested with more than 
their natural splendour, when regarded as picturing 

* the third heavens/ — as being the outer courts of 
Jehovah's residence — the presence-chamber of the 
Great King. The same hand that stretched out 
yonder heavens as a curtain, and laid the floors of 
his palace upon the surface of the ocean, or upon 
the watery clouds, has spread a larger tent — hs 
pitched a richer pavilion — has built a firmer and 
more enduring palace for his saints. It adds 
beauty to those heavens to reflect, that they were 
garnished by the hand and the Spirit of our Re- 
deemer ; and it ought to fill us with admiration, 
gratitude, and longing anticipation, to remember, 
that the same voice which at first said, ' Let there 
be a firmament in the midst of the waters/ and 
which bade ' the stars also' into existence, has 
since said, * In my Father's house are many man- 
sions. — I go to prepare a place for you. And if I 



SABBATH BY THE SEA. 67 

go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, 
and receive you unto myself; that where I am 
there ye maybe also/ Curiosity may suggest a 
thousand questions respecting the future abode of 
' the elect people of God/ Faith is satisfied with 
the Saviour's declaration, ' Where I am, there also 
shall my servant be.' 

" Clouds are the emblems of affliction. Jehovah 
is figuratively represented as making the material 
clouds his chariot : and, by a similar figure of 
speech, he may be said to visit the world in the 
judgments which he executes, and the afflictions 
which he brings upon the children of men. How 
tremendous — how awful is the thunder-cloud of 
his wrath, wherein he comes down upon nations 
and individuals, who have sinned away the day of 
grace ! In such a cloud of ever-increasing black- 
ness he long hovered over devoted Sion, until the 
fiery indignation broke forth upon her, stretched 
her children lifeless in her streets, and levelled 
her walls with the dust. The brow of Cain was 
marked with the lightning of Jehovah's anger — 
thus Nadab and Abihu died before the Lord — 
thus profane Uzzah perished — thus Ananias and 
Sapphira fell down and gave up the ghost, ' caught 
with a lie upon their tongue.' The afflictions of 
his own people also are numerous, and varied, 
and dark as the clouds of the sky. But let them 
not be apprehensive of the result of any of their 



68 SABBATH BY THE SEA. 

sorrows. Are you looking to the future with 
trembling anxiety ? Does your horizon begin to 
lower ? Has the storm already gathered, or is it 
bursting over you ? Fear not. Though clouds 
and darkness are round about him, mercy and 
truth go before his face. The Lord maketh these 
clouds his chariot ; and it is a chariot of love, in 
which he brings his best gifts, and whence he 
will pour down upon you his richest blessings. 
The clouds that water the earth, and cover its 
surface with fruits, are not more replete with tem- 
poral advantages to mankind, than are afflictions 
with spiritual blessings to the people of God. 

" Jehovah ' walketh upon the wings of the 
wind.' It must be well known to most, if not to 
all of you, my brethren, that not only is the wind 
emblematical of the Spirit of God, but that in 
both the original languages of Sacred writ, the 
same word signifies breath, wind, and spirit. 
How did the Saviour, when about to withdraw 
his visible presence from his church, promise to 
supply the loss, and to manifest himself to his 
people otherwise than unto the world ? Was it 
not by the agency of his Holy Spirit? That 
Divine Person himself visits, and brings the 
Saviour to the soul, in the act of spiritual regene- 
ration, and in the process of sanctification. * The 
wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest 
the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it 



SABBATH BY THE SEA. 69 

cometh, and whither it goeth : so is every one that 
is born of the Spirit.' ' He shall glorify me : for 
he shall receive of mine, and shall show it unto 
you/ To souls of stubborn mould, like Saul's, he 
comes as in the stormy blast. To others, like 
Lydia's, he comes as in the still small voice. 

" Redemption also, has purchased and conse- 
crated the services of angels to the church of 
Christ. Do they wing their way from the throne 
of Jehovah, swiftly as the gale or as the lightning's 
flash ? They come from the great Mediator's foot- 
stool, and they come on errands of mercy. For, 
asks the Apostle Paul, * Are they not all minister- 
ing spirits, sent forth to minister for them who 
shall be heirs of salvation ? ' What an exalted, as 
well as encouraging view, does this consideration 
spread before us, of the condescension and love of 
God ! The very attendants of his throne — the re- 
tinue of his court — even these are employed, and 
delight to be engaged, in ministering to the instruc- 
tion, the comfort, and the safety of redeemed 
sinners. Of many, in earlier age, they announced 
the approaching birth. Of some they have been 
the visible deliverers from imminent perils. Re- 
specting all the saints of God, they have a solemn 
charge, to bear them up in their hands along the 
slippery or the rugged paths of life, and to trans- 
port them from the vale of death to the bosom of 
their Father and their God. Happy spirits, who 



70 SABBATH BY THE SEA. 

excel in strength, that do his commandments, 
hearkening unto the voice of his word ! — those 
ministers of his that do his pleasure in serving 
man, their own destined companion in a brighter 
and better world, where he will be ' nearest the 
throne and first in song/ and they shall occupy 
the surrounding circle and take up the chorus of 
his strain ! 

" But, dear brethren, we shall have employed 
our time to little purpose, if we have only given 
indulgence to our imaginations. A close applica- 
tion must be made of the truths, which have passed 
under our notice. 

"Is the Lord so great — so very great, as he is 
represented? How low — how very low, then, 
should be our self-prostration before him ! With 
what abhorrence should we keep down the pride 
that would exalt us in our own estimation, and 
flatter us with a conceit of our own importance, 
and lure us into a confidence in our own ima- 
ginary goodness or strength. Lord ! what is 
man? 

" Can you, without presumption, say unto him, 
O Lord, my God ! Never forget — never lose sight 
of the obligation under which such an acknow- 
ledgment lays you. 'Thou hast avouched the 
Lord this day to be thy God, and to walk in his 
ways, and to keep his statutes, and his command- 
ments, and his judgments, and to hearken unto 



SABBATH BY THE SEA. 71 

his voice ; and the Lord hath avouched thee this 
day to be his peculiar people/ But the privilege 
of this relation is as great and extensive as the 
obligation. Is the Lord your God — reconciled 
unto you by the Son of his love ? Then % all things 
are yours ; whether Paul, or Apollos, or Cephas, 
(the various advantages of the Christian ministry) 
or the world, or life, or death, or things present, or 
things to come ; all are yours ! ' For what can you 
be at a loss, living or dying, if the Lord is your 
God ? But, on the other hand, have you no such 
relation to him ? Have you, like rebellious and 
apostate Israel, made to yourselves ' new gods ' ? 
Are you living ' without God in the world ' ? O 
suffer me then to address to you a tender, but 
faithful word of admonition. As you are without 
God, so are you ' without hope/ You have nothing 
which you can call your own, except the dreadful 
inheritance of wrath and woe. For if God is not 
your portion in time, heaven, with all its untold 
joys, cannot be your portion in eternity. There is 
a Saviour, in and through whom you may regain 
the lost favour of God, and make the bright rever- 
sion of glory your own. Have timely recourse to 
him, and you shall not seek his face in vain. 

c< Does honour belong unto God ? Have we 

given him the glory due unto his name ? God is 

light, and in him is no darkness at all. By name 

, and profession we are children of light. Let us be 



**2 



SABBATH BY THE SEA. 



careful to walk in the light, as he is in the light. 
We cannot be hid. Many eyes are upon us. Would 
the heir-apparent of an earthly crown often anti- 
cipate his future greatness, and endeavour, during 
his minority, to sustain the dignity of his high 
station ? And shall not we, the children of a king, 
and the inheritors of a throne, remember our lofty 
destiny, and walk worthy of him, who hath called 
us to his kingdom and glory ? Every glance at 
the pavilion of the skies, and at its magnificent 
beams of clouds and waves, should remind us of 
our exalted home, and excite us to set our affec- 
tions on things above, not on things on the earth. 
For we are dead, professedly dead to the world, 
and our life is hid with Christ in God. When 
Christ, who is our life, shall appear, then shall 
we also appear with him in glory. 

" Brethren, think on these things. Meet every 
affliction as the chariot of your Saviour, in which 
he comes to>isit you in mercy. Cherish the voice 
of his word, and the attendant breathings of his 
Spirit, for they are tokens of his presence. Aim 
to live and die as those who have a good hope 
through grace, that they shall through eternity 
be associated with angels, in singing, ' with a loud 
voice, Worthy is the Lamb that was slain, to receive 
power, and riches, and wisdom, and strength, and 
honour, and glory, and blessing, for ever and ever. 
Amen/ " 






CHAPTER VIII 



THE SEA-SIDE TOMB. 



The sudden illness of a clerical friend, at some 
distance, requiring the assistance of the minister, 
there was no second service at the parish church. 
Our party, therefore, after such a light, Sabbath 
repast, as refreshes without impeding the natural 
faculties, met on the road to a neighbouring 
village, in whose rural temple they hoped again to 
hear 'the words of this life.' The road lay across 
one of the lofty hills that formed the valley where 
the town stood. The heat of a cloudless sun was 
pleasantly moderated by a breeze from the sea, 
which spread wider and wider beneath them as 
they ascended the eminence ; but the beauty of 
numerous white sails in the offing, was much tar- 
nished by the reflection, that they were bearing 
many away from the means of grace, whom a 
mixture of impiety and superstition, too common 



74 THE SEA-SIDE TOMB. 

to mariners, had induced to choose the holy day 
of God for commencing their voyage ; or whom 
the love of pleasure had tempted to profane the 
day of God. When our pedestrians had advanced 
about two miles, they descried the little church in 
a small, deep ravine, whose verdant slope, watered 
by a rivulet, gradually widened and extended to 
the shore, and opened a striking view of the ocean 
between the abrupt hills. ' The sound of the 
church-going bell' echoed up and down the glen, 
and was inviting and attracting to the altar of 
God, numerous groups along every path that led 
thither. The population of the village was not 
large, and comparatively few graves undulated the 
green sod surrounding the sacred edifice. One 
tomb, with a weeping willow bending over it, 
remarkable for its simplicity, and still more so for 
the little history connected with it, usually at- 
tracted every stranger's eye ; and the inhabitants 
of the neighbouring cottages took a melancholy 
pleasure in pointing it out to visitors, and in 
repeating the artless narrative. It was erected to 
the memory of a young and newly-married couple, 
who, having taken up their temporary abode in 
the vicinity, had been accustomed to resort thither 
on the Sabbath, to pray and hear the word ; and 
in the week to gladden the hearts of the cottagers, 
by their visits, their instructions, and their gifts. 
A malignant fever, caught in attending a poor 



THE SEA-SIDE TOMB. 75 

sailor, as rapid in its progress as it was fatal in its 
consequences, laid the bridegroom low. His 
youthful and lovely bride barely survived him. 
The same grave, and the same hour, covered them 
from human view, amidst such a crowd of weeping 
mourners, as never before assembled on that 
cousecrated spot. Their modest tomb stands as 
a memorial of the faith and hope in which they 
lived and died, and that 

The spider's most attenuated thread 

Is cord — is cable, to man's tender tie 

On earthly bliss : it breaks at every breeze. 

" My friends," said the Vicar to the sur- 
rounding group, " how lovely is the life, and how 
desirable is the death of the righteous ! This 
epitaph, confirmed by the villagers, and speaking 
in language not wontedly found on flattering 
grave-stones, testifies that these young persons 
died in the Lord. They are, therefore, 'blessed.' 
Let not our feelings, which now seem excited, 
evaporate in empty sighs. Let us go into this 
house of God more disposed than ever, to seek 
and appropriate to ourselves that Saviour, who is 
' the resurrection and the life' of every believer in 
his name. The hour is coming, when they who 
sleep in this grave will exultingly hear the voice 
of the Son of man, and come forth to meet 



76 THE SEA-SIDE TOMB. 

him. May we hail his second advent with equal 

joy!" 

They entered the church in good time to com- 
pose their minds after the fatigue of the walk, and 
to calm the varied emotions produced by the field 
of graves, before they accompanied the officiating 
clergyman to the throne of the heavenly grace. 
They felt the service to be, as they had ever found 
it, most admirably adapted to promote the object 
they had in view ; and that object was communion 
with God, as penitent children approaching an 
offended but forgiving parent. By one of those 
coincidences, which are frequently noticed with 
surprise and delight, the minister's subject exactly 
accorded with the impressions made upon their 
minds previously to their entering the church. 
His text was selected from St. Peter's former 
Epistle, the first chapter, and the 24th and 25th 
verses. " For all flesh is as grass, and all the 
glory of man as the flower of grass ; the grass 
withereth, and the flower thereof falleth away : but 
the word of the Lord endureth for ever ; and this 
is the word which by the gospel is preached unto 
you/' Some beautiful passages from Archbishop 
Leighton's Commentary were quoted and acknowl- 
edged, which Theophilus, on his return, pointed 
out to his mother, whom solicitude for the spi- 
ritual interests of her servants had detained at 
home. 



THE SEA-SIDE TOMB. 77 

Charles Willoughby wrote these simple lines 
the following morning, and presented thern to 
Mrs. Hamilton, while on their way to the 
beach. 

THE SEA-SIDE TOMB. 

No sounds of anguish echo'd round that grave : 
No forms of terror hover'd o'er that tomb. 

Was it the murmur of the neighbouring wave, 
Breathing low dirges o'er their early doom, 
Who on that spot, in youth — in beauty's bloom, 

Wither'd, like roses on their fragrant bed ? 
Was it the echo of their narrow room 

Beneath our cautious feet, that fear'd to tread 
With heavy step so near the mansions of the dead ? 

No : 'twas a voice from heav'n> that softly cried : — 

' Write, in the pages of eternal truths 
Blest are the dead, who have in Jesus died, 

In age, in manhood, or in tender youth ! 

They live where life's perennial waters sooth 
The ransom'd soul to everlasting rest ; — 

The furrow'd brow of care and sorrow smooth : — 
The smile of God, " the sunshine of their breast :" — 
And they who slumber here are thus supremely blest.' 

The breeze, which erst so gently cool'd our brows, 
When bending o'er that willow-shaded grave, 

Was it the fanning of that willow's boughs ? 
Or was it wafted from the ocean-wave, 
Where the blue billows, never ceasing, lave 

The mountain- cliff ? No : 'twas an angel's wing — 



78 THE SEA-SIDE TOMB. 

Their guardian seraph, — station'd there to save 
And watch their dust : the stirring of his wing 
Form'd the still air, and touch'd our bosom's tend'rest 
string. 

Oft may the young frequent the holy spot, 

To con the lesson of the silent sod ; 
And there, this fleeting world awhile forgot, 

Commune with death, and lift their hearts to God. 

For lovelier never earth's rough pathway trod, 
Than they, who underneath that marble lie : 

Early they bow'd to death's unsparing rod ; 
He scarcely reach'd the portal of the sky, 
Before she faded too, and laid her down to die. 

And oft the fisher will suspend his oar, 

Or tack his light-sail'd vessel, passing by, 
As off that grassy cove and sounding shore 

His village temple greets his tearful eye; 

And wipe the drop that falls, he scarce knows why. 
He lov'd them living, and he wept them dead, 

For they had often still'd his infant's cry, 
And, seated near his own, or partner's bed, 
The healing herb supplied, or heav'nly promise read. 

Then, ere he plies again with heaving breast 



The dripping oar in ocean's swelling brine, 
He chides the selfish tear : " For they are blest ! 

" High in the heav'n of heav'ns like stars they shine; 

" For they full many a heart — ah ! even mine — 
" Through gracious aid from high, have turn'd to God. 

" Saviour ! this stubborn heart and will incline 
" To follow in the path thy servants trod, 
Until near them I lie beneath yon hallow'd sod. 






THE SEA-SIDE TOMB. 79 

" Or, should some fatal storm surprise me here, 
" Whelm my slight bark, and sink me in the deep — 

" The weeds my winding- sheet — the rock my bier : — 
" Should I below the wave be doom'd to sleep, — 
" Oh ! Saviour, even there my ashes keep ; 

" My spirit welcome to thy glorious seat; 

" And while surviving friends my lament weep, 

" Grant me those parents of my soul to meet, 

And with them prostrate fall adoring at thy feet ! " 



CHAPTER IX. 



THE ISLAND, OR THE USES OF THE SEA. 



A vessel having been engaged for an excursion 
to a neighbouring island, the Vicar with his 
family and friends, embarked on Monday morn- 
ing, and stood out to sea. The breeze was just 
sufficient to bear them over the waves, which 
were sufficiently agitated to vary the marine land- 
scape, without being boisterous. Slight qualms 
felt by some of the party, gave rise to a playful 
hilarity in the young people, which soon drew in 
their elders ; and they ran their eight or ten miles 
across the pathless element, little conscious of 
time or distance, till they saw the shore they had 
quitted far off, and the place of their destination 
near at hand. It was an island two or three miles 
in length, and of unequal width, skirted with rocks 
sometimes rising into cliffs, and covered with 
scanty verdure. Seasons did occur when a few 
cattle were brought from the main land, to browse 
on the dwarf shrubs, and graze the short grass ; 
but its only regular tenants were innumerable 



THE ISLAND, OR THE USES OF THE SEA. 81 

rabbits and water fowl, who viewed with startled 
surprise the occasional intruders upon their solitude. 
Having landed at the only accessible spot, the 
voyagers clambered up a steep slope, and wandered 
in several groups over the island, whichever way 
their fancy led, or wild flowers and other objects 
allured them. The sea-breeze blew refreshingly 
around them; the curlew whistled in harmony 
with the murmuring winds and waters; and, 
charmed with each others converse and society, 
and enchanted with the scene, the friends, every 
now and then, were half disposed to ask, " Belong 
we to a world of sin and strife ? " 

Miss Hamilton and Miss Willoughby strayed 
away from the rest, whom a rising ground con- 
cealed from view. Louisa was gazing in silent 
delight upon the ocean. Her companion was at 
a short distance behind, gathering some botanical 
specimens to enrich her collection, and as she 
came near Louisa, she overheard the latter, ejacu- 
lating, in a low voice : — 

" How sweet, how passing sweet, is solitude !" 

Miss Willoughby just reached her in time to 
say, with a cheerful smile, " Allow me to take up 

the poet's thread, and add, 

- 
I 

But grant me still a friend in my retreat, 

Whom I may whisper — Solitude is sweet 1 " 

e2 



82 THE ISLAND, OR THE USES OF THE SEA. 

" You, as well as myself, are partial to Cowper," 
answered Louisa, " and show some dexterity in 
quoting him. Perhaps you can help me to recall 
another passage of the same poem, of which I am 
reminded by our present situation, and by the 
sight of some of our party upon the shore. " 

" I often observe," replied Miss Willoughby, 
" that there exists a remarkable similarity in our 
tastes, and in our train of thought. The same 
objects of sight, and the same sounds, appear 
simultaneously to attract our notice, and not un- 
frequently the same recollections and associations 
are awakened in our minds. But pardon this 
irrelevant remark, and my delay in complying 
with your wish. If I mistake not, the lines are 
these : — 



Op'ning the map of God's extensive plan, 
We find a little isle, this life of man : 
Eternity's unknown expanse appears 
Circling; around and limiting his years. 
The busy race examine and explore 
Each creek and cavern of the dang'rous shore, 
With care collect what in their eyes excels, 
Some shining pebbles, and some weeds and shells ; 
Thus laden, dream that they are rich and great, 
And happiest he that groans beneath his weight. 
The waves o'ertake them in their serious play, 
And every hour sweeps multitudes away ; 
They shriek and sink, survivors start and weep, 
Pursue their sport, and follow to the deep. 






THE ISLAND, OR THE USES OF THE SEA. 83 

A few forsake the throng ; with lifted eyes 
Ask wealth of heav'n, and gain a real prize, 
Truth, wisdom, grace, and peace like that above, 
Seal'd with His signet, whom they serve and love : 
Scorn'd by the rest, with patient hope they wait 
A kind release from their imperfect state, 
And unregretted are soon snatch'd away 
From scenes of sorrow into glorious day." 

" The very passage ;" rejoined Miss Hamilton, 
<f not that in all its particulars we may now seem 
to realize it. Happily, and most remarkably, one 
main object appears to hold the supreme regard of 
most, if not of all with whom we have taken our 
little voyage to day. The blessing of God upon 
an education, which has been as watchful and 
scriptural as it has been considerate and tender, 
aided by the advantages of a faithful ministry, and 
furthered by affliction, has mortified our natural 
relish for the pursuits and pleasures of the world's 
vain and busy throng, and produced and fostered 
a new and better taste." 

Miss Willoughby caught up these remarks, and 
was dwelling upon the memory of her deceased 
mother, upon the many excellencies of her father, 
upon the pastoral labours of the Vicar, and upon 
several incidents in her family's history, when 
Edwin's shout, and his hurried approach down the 
rising ground, reminded them of the time and 
place of rendezvous. They proceeded to the spot 



84 THE ISLAND, OR THE USES OF THE SEA. 

where all had agreed to meet, and where all except 
themselves had already assembled, to partake of 
some refreshment brought up from the boat. The 
place was shaded by some romantic rocks that 
rose abruptly through the shallow soil, and on 
whose hard breast were inscribed numerous names, 
amongst which they found a few recorded by the 
hands of school-fellows and friends. Seats and 
other accommodations were readily contrived, 
where all were agreed in contracting their wants 
into the smallest compass, and in promoting the 
comfort of others rather than their own. When 
the repast was ready, Julia requested Pascal to 
repeat, that all might sing, the simple grace, 
which she had heard her brother say, that he and 
his college friends were accustomed to sing in 
their private tea-parties. " Such has, indeed, 
been our custom," said Pascal, " but I would not 
have you publish it to the world ; for though I 
trust the days are past, when men might be ex- 
pelled from an English and a Christian University, 
because they prayed and read the Bible more than 
others, who read little and prayed less, yet we 
must avoid the danger of having our good evil 
spoken of; and at the same time that we support 
a consistent profession with manly fortitude, we 
must imitate our blessed Lord, of whose meek 
and lowly demeanour Isaiah predicted, ' He shall 
not cry, nor lift up, nor cause his voice to be 



THE ISLAND, OR THE USES OF THE SEA. 85 

heard in the street/ But perhaps you will think 
I am forgetting myself, and giving a lecture when 
I am asked for a song. The simple stanzas are 
these : — 

Jesus, thou art the living bread !— 
The bread sent down from heav'n: 

For us thy precious blood was shed, 
For us thy life was giv'n. 

Thee let us taste in all our food, 

And relish thy free grace ; 
Ever believe that thou art good, 

And ever sing thy praise." 



" How few and simple are the real necessaries 
of life," said Mr. Willoughby, as he supplied the 
party with their rations, " and how much we add 
to the burdens of life by multiplying its wants. 
I observe that two or three little things have been 
omitted in making up our stores, and that these 
deficiencies have already elicited more remarks 
than the comforts which are spread before us." 
Julia and Miss Willoughby were beginning to take 
the blame of the omissions to themselves, for on 
them had devolved the task of providing for the 
voyage, when the Vicar good-humouredly inter- 
rupted them, by observing, that where all were 
well-satisfied there ought to be no regrets, and that 
the surprise was, that so many things had been 



86 THE ISLAND, OR THE USES OF THE S^A. 

thought of, rather than that a few had been over- 
looked. " Yes," added Louisa, " and may we 
not learn this valuable lesson from such little 
incidents, — to make nothing essentially necessary 
to our comfort and happiness, of which we may 
be deprived?" 

" And now, Mr. Pascal Hamilton," said Edwin, 
as they concluded their refreshment, " will you 
favour us with a suitable thanksgiving ? But, since 
quotation seems to be the order of the day in all 
our rambles, may I first be permitted to quote a 
semi-stanza from our favourite ' Minstrel'? Miss 
Hamilton's remark brought it to my mind. 

From labour health, from health contentment springs, 
Contentment opes the source of every joy. 
He envied not, he never thought of kings : 
Nor from those appetites sustained annoy, 
Which chance may frustrate, or indulgence cloy.' 

They then sang a verse with which Pascal 
supplied them. 

We thank thee, Lord, for this our food, 
But more because of Jesu's blood. — 
Let manna to our souls be giv'n, 
The bread of life sent down from heav'n. 

The boatmen now carried off the plentiful frag- 
ments, and while they were regaling themselves, 



THE ISLAND, OR THE USES OF THE SEA. 87 

the party retained their seats, and the Vicar drew 
out a paper, which he had intentionally placed in 
his pocket, and which, at the general request, he 
read aloud. 

GOD SAW THAT IT WAS GOOD. Gen. i. 10. 

" The ocean reflected the smile of the divine 
approbation, when Jehovah, sitting on the circle 
of the heavens, surveyed the result of the third day 
of time's first week. God saw that it was good 
for the various and beneficent purposes for which 
he designed it ; and its operation in the vast and 
complicated machinery of nature, during nearly 
six thousand years, has not impaired its claim 
upon that approval. Perhaps no province of this 
sublunary creation has suffered less from the curse 
brought down by the fall of man, than the ocean. 
If I may be allowed to quote Byron again, 

Time writes no wrinkle on thine azure brow — 
Such as creation's dawn beheld, thou rollest now. 

" The devout contemplator of marine scenery 
will respond to the Psalmist's adoring exclamation, 
and adopt his soliloquy. ' O Lord, how manifold 
are thy works ! — in wisdom hast thou made them 
all : the earth is full of thy riches : so is this great 
and wide sea ! ' It is so, whether we regard it as the 
grand reservoir and fountain from which the dry 



Ob THE ISLAND, OR THE USES OF THE SEA. 

land is watered ; as the abode of innumerable 
creatures ; or as the grand medium of communi- 
cation between continent and continent, between 
nation and nation. ' He gathereth the waters of 
the sea together as a heap : he layeth up the 
depth in store-houses:' and thence, in the exuber- 
ance of his goodness and bounty, he dispenses 
rich and countless blessings through the earth. 
The waters may appropriately be called the riches 
of the world. The rivers and rains that water the 
earth, are to mankind more truly precious than 
streams and showers of gold. 

" Every spring, stream, and river, has its source 
in the fountains of the great deep ; for, as the ele- 
gant and devotional Bishop Home beautifully 
remarks, * The waters of the sea are not only 
prevented from destroying the earth, but, by a 
wonderful machinery, are rendered the means of 
preserving every living thing which moveth there- 
on. Partly ascending from the great deep through 
the slrata of the earth, partly exhaled from the 
surface of the ocean into the air, and from thence 
falling in rain, especially on the tops and by the 
sides of mountains, they break forth in fresh 
springs, having left their salts behind them ; they 
trickle through the valleys between the hills, 
receiving new supplies as they go ; they become 
large rivers ; and, after watering, by their innumer- 
able turnings and windings, immense tracts of 



THE ISLAND, OR THE USES OF THE SEA. 89 

country, they return to the place from whence 
they came. Thus every animal hath an oppor- 
tunity of quenching that thirst, which must 
otherwise soon put a period to its existence. The 
' wild asses' are particularly mentioned, because 
they live in remote and sandy deserts ; yet even 
such creatures, in such places, are by the God of 
nature taught the way to the waters ; insomuch 
that the parched traveller, when in search of a 
fountain, findeth them to be the best guides in the 
world, and needeth only to observe and follow the 
herds of them descending to the streams. In the 
spiritual system, or new creation, there are wells 
of salvation, living springs, waters of comfort, of 
which all nations, even the most savage and bar- 
barous, are invited to come and drink freely. They 
flow among the churches ; they descend into the 
hearts of the lowly ; and they refresh us in our 
passage through the wilderness ; for even there 
f do waters break out, and streams in the desert.' 
Isa. xxxv. 6/ 

" Sheltered by 'the shadow of a great rock' 
from the heat of noon, I love to contemplate the 
broad, glassy bosom of the ocean, when not a 
breeze curls its blue waves, and it lies as a convex 
mirror beneath the arched heavens. I observe 
with admiration the veil of mist that conceals 
some of its beauties, and hides remote objects, 
while it indicates the amazing process that is 



90 THE ISLAND, OR THE USES OF THE SEA. 

going on in the calm and noiseless laboratory of 
nature. 5 A mighty hand is invisibly employed on 
one of the most astonishing and beneficent works 
of providence. ' Evaporation is calculated to 
raise, on an average, thirty-five inches of water 
from every square inch on the superficies of the 
globe, which gives an aggregate of 94,450 cubic 
miles of water, annually evaporated over the whole 
globe. This mass of water, raised in the atmos- 
phere, by an almost imperceptible operation, floats 
in the open firmament of heaven, until, condensed 
by the cold in the upper regions, it is precipitated 
in rain to the earth, to give its indispensable aid 
to the immense machinery of the vegetable and 
animal world.' 'And how does it fall?' asks 
Archdeacon Paley, ' Not by the clouds being all 
at once converted into water, and descending, 
like a sheet ; not in rushing down as columns from 
a spout ; but in moderate drops, as from a cul- 
lender. Our watering-pots are made to imitate 
showers of rain. Yet, a priori, I should have 
thought either of the two former methods more 
likely to have taken place than the last.' 

" There is an incessant circulation of the same 
fluid ; and not one drop, probably, more or less, 
now, than there was at the creation. A particle 
of water takes its departure from the surface of 

5 In point of fact, " evaporation is least in calm weather, greater 
when a breeze blows, and greatest when a strong wind." 



THE ISLAND, OR THE USES OF THE SEA. 91 

the sea, in order to fulfil certain important offices 
to the earth ; and, having executed the service 
which was assigned to it, it returns to the bosom 
which it left. 

" Some have thought that we have too much 
water upon the globe ; the sea occupying above 
three quarters of its whole surface. But the 
expanse of ocean, immense as it is, may be no 
more than sufficient to fertilize the earth. Or, 
independently of this reason, I know not why the 
sea may not have as good a right to its place as 
the land. It may proportionably support as many 
inhabitants ; minister to as large an aggregate of 
enjoyment. The land only affords a habitable 
surface ; the sea is habitable to a great depth. 

" My eye delightedly alternates between the 
waters which are under the firmament, and the 
waters which are above, or elevated in the firma- 
ment ; and, wherever it roams, it meets a present 
God, and is almost overpowered with his glory. 
This shines forth with no feeble ray, in the effect 
produced upon the atmosphere by the agitation 
and circulation of the waters, whereby the air 
is kept in a salubrious state, and fitted for the 
purposes of animal and vegetable respiration. 
'Nothing can be of greater importance to the 
living creation, than the salubrity of their atmos- 
phere. It ought to reconcile us therefore to those 
agitations of the elements, of which we sometimes 



92 THE ISLAND, QR THE USES OF THE SEA. 

deplore the consequences, to know, that they tend 
powerfully to restore to the air that purity, which 
so many causes are constantly impairing.' 

" We cannot for a moment suppose, that our 
higher privileges, as Christians, are to raise us 
above the considerations, which were wont to tune 
the hearts and lyres of saints, under a less illumined 
dispensation. Let us, therefore, listen to the 
recorded charge of the sweet singer of Israel- — a 
charge, indeed, coming from the God of nature 
and of grace, himself, who demands our praise. 
' Sing unto the Lord with thanksgiving ; sing 
praise upon the harp unto our God ; who covereth 
the heaven with clouds, who prepare th rain for 
the earth.' ' Thou visitest the earth, and waterest 
it : thou greatly enrich est it with the river of God, 
which is full of water : thou preparest them corn, 
when thou hast so provided for it. Thou waterest 
the ridges thereof abundantly ; thou settlest the 
furrows thereof ; thou makest it soft with showers ; 
thou blessest the springing thereof. Thou crownest 
the year with thy goodness ; and thy paths drop 
fatness. They drop upon the pastures of the 
wilderness ; and the little hills rejoice on every 
side. The pastures are clothed with flocks ; the 
valleys also are covered over with corn : they 
shout for joy, they also sing.' Job entertained 
sublime views of the same great science — the 
hydrostatics of creation. ' He bindeth up the 



THE ISLAND, OR THE USES OF THE SEA. 93 

waters in his thick clouds ; and the cloud is not 
rent under them.' It may excite our astonishment 
to listen to the physico-theological discussions, 
which arose between that venerable and afflicted 
tenant of an ash-heap and his friends ; and to 
observe how diligently, and I may say devoutly, 
they turned over the pages of nature's ample 
volume, to find either lessons of wisdom, or illus- 
trations of the few, but important revealed truths, 
of which they were in possession. 

" What the natural world would be without 
the circulation of water through its system, that 
the moral and spiritual world is without divine 
influence. All is drought, and barrenness, and 
deformity. But where that influence pays its 
blessed visits, the spiritual world enjoys perpetual 
fertility, and in the regions whence it had been 
withheld, ' the wilderness and the solitary place 
are glad ; and the desert rejoices and blossoms as 
the rose.' And may we not, without indulging 
an unprofitable fancy, discover here, another of the 
i many striking analogies, that subsist between what 
is seen in the natural world, and what is ex- 
perienced in the spiritual world? How is the 
: vital influence drawn from the vast ocean of the 
divine goodness, to be poured as a gracious and 
j refreshing rain upon the inheritance of God, but 
i by the beams of the Sun of righteousness ? There 
i is, however, this important difference between 



94 THE ISLAND, OR THE USES OF THE SEA. 

the type and the antitype. The natural ocean, 
vast as is its depth, and ample as are its 
boundaries, is yet finite, both in respect of space 
and time. Its space is but as the limits of a basin, 
in comparison of the circumference of the universe, 
and a day is coming, when even this great and 
wide sea also will be dried up, like an exhausted 
cistern. But the ocean of God's love is as 
boundless in duration as it is unlimited in 
extent. 

His love is as great as his power, 
And neither knows measure nor end." 

The party were about to request the Vicar to 
read them another paper, since they saw he had 
more than one ; but he remarked, that the tide 
now required their return ; and at this juncture 
one of the boatmen came up, and reminded them 
that the time for their stay was expired. Having 
no disposition to add another to the many narratives 
they had heard, of parties being detained at sea, 
or driven by adverse tides and winds very far from 
their course, they speedily re-embarked. The 
breeze had much subsided, and what little wind 
they had was opposed to them. They had, there- 
fore, to trust to frequent tacking, and the flowing 
of the tide, and it was only by dint of very skilful 
navigation that they reached the shore in time. 

Mr. Hamilton's paper gave rise to a variety of 



THE ISLAND, OR THE USES OF THE SEA. 95 

kindred remarks. He himself said, referring to 
the subject, " I might have observed, that, as the 
clouds visit, and the showers of rain gladden and 
clothe with verdure, the unnumbered ' islands of 
the world-dividing waste/ so the emanations of 
divine grace and love spread happiness and moral 
fertility and beauty through innumerable worlds — 
those isles of the vast abyss which embrace and 
circumscribe the universe." 

"Yes," added Mr. Willoughby, "There he 
presides and diffuses amidst his saints, joy un- 
speakable, and full of glory. And as we, while 
traversing these tiny waves, and this edge of the 
ocean, experience a sense of security and joy 
from the consciousness of the presence of God, so 
an angel, when he wings his flight to the remotest 
corner of creation, feels no painful consciousness of 
distance from the fountain of blessedness. Edwin, 
can you repeat some passages of sacred writ to 
the point of these remarks ? " 

" I suppose, papa," readily answered Edwin, 
" that you refer to those verses of the 139th Psalm. 
* Whither shall I go from thy Spirit ? or, whither 
shall I flee from thy presence ? If I ascend up 
into heaven, thou art there ; if I make my bed in 
hell, behold, thou art there. If I take the wings 
of the morning, and dwell in the uttermost parts 
of the sea ; even there shall thy hand lead me, 
and thy right hand shall hold me. If I say, Surely 



96 THE ISLAND, OR THE USES OF THE SEA. 

the darkness shall cover me ; even the night shall 
be light about me. Yea, the darkness hideth not 
from thee ; but the night shineth as the day : the 
darkness and the light are both alike to thee/ " 

'i With what amazement/' said Julia, shortly 
after, " must the discoverers of America have 
gazed upon the stupendous rivers, which roll their 
floods through provinces and empires into the 
Atlantic. ' The Maragnon, the Orinoco, the Plata, 
in South America ; the Mississippi and St. Law- 
rence, in North America, flow in such spacious 
channels, that, long before they feel the influence 
of the tide, they resemble arms of the sea, rather 
than rivers of fresh water.' " 

Julia read this remark from a small scrap-book, 
which she had with her, as also the following 
extract from a letter of P. Cattaneo, a Modenese 
Jesuit, who landed at Buenos Ayres, in 1749, and 
which is given in a Note to Robertson's History 
of America : " While I resided in Europe, and 
read in books of history, or geography, that the 
mouth of the river de la Plata was a hundred 
and fifty miles in breadth, I considered it as an 
exaggeration, because in this hemisphere we have 
no example of such vast rivers. When I ap- 
proached its mouth, I had the most vehement 
desire to ascertain the truth with my own eyes ; 
and I have found the matter to be exactly as it 
was represented. This I deduce particularly from 



THE ISLAND, OR THE USES OF THE SEA. 97 

one circumstance : when we took our departure 
from Monte Video, a fort situated more than a 
hundred miles from the mouth of the river, and 
where its breadth is considerably diminished, we 
sailed a complete day before we discovered the 
land on the opposite bank of the river ; and when 
we were in the middle of the channel, we could 
not discern land on either side, and saw nothing 
but the sky and water, as if we had been in some 
great ocean. Indeed, we should have taken it to 
be sea, if the fresh water of the river, which was 
turbid, like the Po, had not satisfied us that it was 
a river. Moreover, at Buenos Ayres, another 
hundred miles up the river, and where it is still 
much narrower, it is not only impossible to discern 
the opposite coast, which is indeed very low and 
flat, but one cannot perceive the houses and the 
tops of the steeples in the Portuguese settlement 
at Colonia, on the other side of the river." 

" They say," remarked Theophilus, " that some 
of those American rivers run a course of between 
five and six thousand miles. I often think with 
admiration, of young Orellana, who, in a crazy 
vessel, sailed down the Napo and the Maragnon, 
a voyage of nearly two thousand leagues, through 
savage and hostile nations." 

" Ah ! my boy," interrupted Mrs. Hamilton, 
with a smile beaming with Christian as well as 
maternal love, " if I rightly remember the nar- 

F 



98 THE ISLAND, OR THE USES OF THE SEA. 

rative, which I have not read for thirty years, 
Orellana at last reached the ocean, but found new 
perils awaited him. Let us recollect that ' there is 
a river, the streams whereof make glad the city of 
God.' Its source is the throne of the Lamb, and 
the wide-flowing waters of the western world 
afford only a feeble emblem of its length, and 
breadth, and depth. May its waters gladden our 
hearts, while we are borne down the stream, which 
shall conduct us to an ocean, where our perils and 
our sorrows shall cease, and which no storm shall 
ever disturb." 






CHAPTER X. 



THE INHABITANTS OF THE SEA. 



The Hamiltons and their friends had passed 
the morning too pleasantly, not to endeavour to 
renew their intercourse in the evening. This they 
did round Mr. Willoughby's tea-table. They re- 
counted with gratitude and delight the various 
incidental circumstances of their voyage, and en- 
joyed the reflection, so little known in worldly 
and dissipated circles, that this excursion of 
pleasure had not ended in pain. After the even- 
ing's light refreshment, the Vicar was solicited to 
re-open his budget, and produce what he had 
reserved on the island. He readily complied and 
read as follows : — 

" THIS GREAT AND WIDE SEA, WHEREIN ARE 
THINGS CREEPING INNUMERABLE, BOTH SMALL 
AND GREAT BEASTS." 

" In the book of Revelation, ' the things that 
are in the sea/ are represented as joining in the 
chorus of universal praise, which ascends from 



100 THE INHABITANTS OF THE SEA. 

the creation, unto Him that sittethupon the throne, 
and unto the Lamb for ever and ever. I am not 
necessitated, nor does it become me voluntarily 
to remain indifferent to this song, until I hear it 
in full choir in the heavenly temple. It shall 
refresh me to listen to even its faintest echo mur- 
muring over the face of the deep. 

" The sea is an august and striking object in 
every aspect it presents to the eye; and perhaps in 
none more so, than when viewed as the immense 
abode of animated beings, equally numerous with 
those of the land and air, and probably, still fur- 
ther from the compass of human calculation — 
from the leviathan, who taketh his pasture therein, 
to the minute animalcule, that is raised by the 
sun-beam, with the vapour exhaled from the 
waters. 

" Marine vegetation might spread before us a 
boundless field of speculation. The ocean contains 
its gardens and its forests, with their indigenous 
tenants ; and through all the gradations of marine 
vegetables, from the fibrous and silky weed of the 
shore, to the enormous sea-plant in the Atlantic, 
throwing up its branches many a fathom, I 
see much to elicit my admiration. Jonah took 
notice of this part of natural history in his remark- 
able song of praise. ' The weeds were wrapped 
about my head.' Columbus, in his first voyage 
-of discovery, when about four hundred leagues to 






THE INHABITANTS OF THE SEA. 101 

the west of the Canaries, found the sea so covered 
with weeds, that it resembled a meadow of vast 
extent, and in some places they were so thick as 
to retard the motions of the vessels. Nor is this 
vast quantity of marine vegetables, without its 
use to man. The rambler upon our shores may 
observe the employment given to numbers of the 
poor, in collecting the fuci, which are used for 
many valuable purposes. In the islands, and on 
the coasts of Scotland, and in the Orkneys parti- 
cularly, numerous families are supported by 
gathering the bladder fucus, one of the commonest 
of our marine plants, for the making of kelp. 
* Terrestrial vegetation is only one part of univer- 
sal vegetation; and immense tracts of marine 
vegetation flourish in all parts of the bed of the 
sea. We may judge from the vast quantity of 
fuci, and other marine plants, vulgarly united 
under the general denomination of sea-weeds, 
which are occasionally cast upon some of our 
coasts, and which are commonly used for fuel in 
the Islands of Jersey and Guernsey, of the im- 
mense quantity of these tribes of vegetation, which 
must be contained in the different basins and 
depths of the sea.' 6 Not a few eminent natu- 
ralists consider, that probably we are indebted to 



6 See Granville Penn's Comparative Estimate of the Mineral and 
Mosaic Geologies. 



102 THE INHABITANTS OF THE SEA. 

the marine vegetation of the antediluvian world 
for that most useful species of fuel, which is dug 
out of the bowels of the earth, which is no less 
essential to the prosperity of our manufactures, 
and the consequent welfare of the nation, than it 
is to the comfort of our winter hearths. 

" Nor can we examine, without admiration, 
those productions of the sea, which form the con- 
necting link between the vegetable and animal 
tribes. The sponge, the coral, and the polypus, 
constitute this link, and are interesting not only 
to the naturalist, but also to the unscientific, 
though devout lover of the works of nature's 
God. It is truly astonishing to explore the gigan- 
tic labours of the minute creatures, which rear 
their palaces and forests in the waters, presenting, 
as in the Mediterranean, Red, 7 and other Seas, a 
formidable barrier to navigation. The coasts of 
the Arabian Gulf, particularly, are in every part 
inaccessible to vessels of any considerable burden, 
owing to the rapid and extensive growth of coral. 
Navigators, who have explored that celebrated 
sea, describe, in glowing language, the beauty of 
its sub-marine scenes, as far outvying the fabled 

7 In the opinion of not a few travellers and learned men, the Red 
Sea derived its Hebrew name of tpQ Q 1 ', or the Weedy Sea, from 
the large trees or plants of white coral, spread every where over the 
bottom of the Red Sea, perfectly in imitation of plants on land. See 
Parkhurst's Hebrew Lexicon J12D- 



THE INHABITANTS OF THE SEA. 103 

palaces of the genii of the waters. ' The naviga- 
tion,' says a modern traveller, ' is intricate ; the 
shoals of coral numerous ; but the waters smooth 
and clear as pilot could desire. It was beautiful 
to look down into this bright, transparent sea, and 
mark the corals, here in large masses of hony- 
combed rock, there in light branches of a pale red 
hue, and the beds of green sea-weed, and the 
golden sand, and the shells, and the fish sporting 
round your vessel, making colour of a beauty to 
your eye, which is not their own.' A student of 
the Prophetic page will take another view of this 
fact, and recognize in it one of the secondary 
causes, which have wrought the accomplishment 
of God's word respecting Egypt. Ezekiel xxix. 15. 
* It shall be the basest of the kingdoms, neither 
.shall it exalt itself any more above the nations : 
for I will diminish them, that they shall no more 
rule over the nations.' 

The number, beauty,, and utility of the finny 
race, are topics severally worthy of remark. In 
number they equal, or exceed those of the earth. 
It is stated, that there are upwards of three thou- 
sand known species of fish, including the shell 
tribes ; and it is probable, that there are at least, 
as many kinds as yet unknown. When we multi- 
ply these by their subordinate varieties, and these 
again by the possible number of individuals, the 
mind is lost in the immensity of the calculation* 



104 THE INHABITANTS OF THE SEA. 

Yet each individual, from the great leviathan, 
' who maketh the deep to boil like a pot : — who 
maketh the sea like a pot of ointment : — who 
maketh the deep to shine after him ; one would 
think the deep to be hoary ;' — to the minutest reptile 
of the waters, is the work of one hand, an object of 
the divine care, and a recipient of Jehovah's pro- 
vident bounty. While I am delighted with the 
display of colours exhibited by the sea anemone, the 
polypus so common on our own shores, I am still 
more charmed with the specimen it affords me of 
the benevolence of Him, ' Who openeth his hand, 
and filleth all things living with plenteousness,' 
providing for their sustenance and their happiness 
with an unsparing liberality. It is the hand that 
holds the waters in its hollow, which brings to the 
silken feelers of the polypus its appropriate food, 
and gives it a capacity of enjoyment suited to its 
station on the scale of being. Archdeacon Paley 
adduces a similar instance in his Natural Theology. 
' If we look to what the waters produce, shoals of 
the fry of fish frequent the margins of rivers, of 
lakes, and of the sea itself. These are so happy, 
that they know not what to do with themselves. 
Their attitudes, their vivacity, their leaps out of 
the water, their frolics in it, (which I have noticed 
a thousand times with equal attention and amuse- 
ment,) all conduce to show their excess of spirits, 
and are simply the effects of that excess. Walk- 



. 



THE INHABITANTS OF THE SEA. 105 






ing by the sea-side, in a calm evening, upon a 
sandy shore, and with an ebbing tide, I have fre- 
quently remarked the appearance of a dark cloud, 
or rather very thick mist, hanging over the edge 
of the water, to the height, perhaps, of half a yard, 
and of the breadth of two or three yards, stretch- 
ing along the coast, as far as the eye could reach, 
and always retiring with the water. When this 
cloud came to be examined, it proved to be nothing 
else than so much space, filled with young shrimps, 
in the act of bounding into the air, from the shal- 
low margin of the water, or from the wet sand. 
If any motion of a mute animal could express 
delight, it was this ; if they had meant to make 
signs of their happiness, they could not have done 
it more intelligibly. Suppose, then, what I have 
no doubt of, each individual of this number, to be 
in a state of positive enjoyment, what a sum, col- 
lectively, of gratification and pleasure, have we 
here before our view ? ' 

" In the beauty of their colours, in the agility 
of their motions, in the variety of their forms, and 
in their exquisite mechanism, the fish seem to be 
on a par with the tenants of the earth and air. 
Falconer, in his pathetic poem of The Shipwreck, 
thus introduces the Dolphin. 

And now, approaching near the lofty stern, 
A shoal of sportive dolphins they discern. 
f2 



106 THE INHABITANTS OF THE SEA. 

From burnish'd scales they beam refulgent rays, 
'Till all the glowing ocean seems to blaze. 
Soon to the sport of death the crew repair, 
Dart the long lance, or spread the baited snare. 
One in redoubling mazes wheels along, 
And glides, unhappy ! near the triple prong. 
Rodmond, unerring, o'er his head suspends 
The barbed steel, and every turn attends. 
Unerring aim'd, the missive weapon flew, 
And, plunging, struck the fated victim through. 
Th' upturning points his ponderous bulk sustain ; 
On deck he struggles with convulsive pain. 
But while his heart the fated javelin thrills, 
And flitting life escapes in sanguine rills, 
What radiant changes strike the astonish'd sight ! 
What glowing hues of mingled shade and light ! 
Not equal beauties gild the lucid west, 
With parting beams all o'er profusely drest : 
Not lovelier colours paint the vernal dawn, 
When orient dews impearl the enamell'd lawn : 
Than from his sides in bright suffusion flow, 
That now with gold empyreal seem to glow ; 
Now in pellucid sapphires meet the view, 
And emulate the soft, celestial hue ; 
Now beam a flaming crimson on the eye, 
And now assume the purple's deeper dye. 
But here description clouds each shining ray — 
What terms of Art can Nature's powers display? 

Canto 2, 



" The benefits derived by man, from this part of 
the animal creation, are innumerable. To millions 



THE INHABITANTS OF THE SEA. 107 

of our race, fish furnish a light and wholesome 
food, constant employment, and the means of 
procuring, if not wealth, yet many of the comforts 
of life. Numerous facts are connected with the 
fisheries, on which the mind may ruminate with 
equal pleasure and surprise, and which will recall 
to the Christian's remembrance the blessing con- 
ferred at the creation, when God, contemplating 
the inhabitants of the waters, which his own hand 
had just brought into existence, ' blessed them, 
saying, Be fruitful, and multiply, and fill the 
waters in the seas.' We may here, also, gratefully 
reflect upon one of the many results of the Saviour's 
mediation, the partial restoration to man of that 
* dominion over the fish of the sea,' which was 
bestowed upon him when he was invested with 
the government of the earth, but which he lost at 
the fall, when the crown fell from his head, and 
his honour was laid in the dust. More than 750 
millions pounds weight of Cod fish have been 
caught on the bank of Newfoundland alone, in 
one year, giving employment to three hundred 
vessels, of from one hundred to two hundred tons 
burden. The herring, which visits our own and 
other European shores, in immense shoals, from 
year to year, affords an almost incredible amount 
of sustenance and occupation. It has been cal- 
culated, that, in Holland, formerly more than 
150,000 persons were engaged in catching and 



108 THE INHABITANTS OF THE SEA. 

preparing this fish for the market; and, on the 
different coasts of our own country, many thou- 
sands of families are entirely maintained by this 
fishery. The art of preserving the herring is said 
to have been first discovered, towards the end of 
the fourteenth century, by Guillaume Beuchel, a 
native of Brabant : and, it' is a curious historical 
anecdote, that one hundred and fifty years after- 
wards, the Emperor, Charles V. honoured Beuchel 
as a benefactor of the human race, by visiting the 
place of his interment, and eating a herring on 
his grave. 

" To mention but one more tenant of the waves, 
— the Thunny, or Albicore, ' of steel-blue colour 
above, and silvery white beneath, is from six to 
ten feet in length, and frequently weighs from 400 
to 1200 pounds. It is chiefly caught in the 
Mediterranean, and we are acquainted with no 
species of fish, of size equal to the Thunny, which 
supply mankind with so palatable a food. The 
Thunny fishery is pursued with great ardour, by 
the inhabitants of nearly all the shores of the 
Mediterranean, but particularly by those of Spain 
and Sardinia. It constitutes one of the principal 
objects of diversion to the inhabitants of Sardinia ; 
and for the purpose of attending it, many persons 
of distinction come even from distant countries. The 
nets, which are of great size and value, ar,e prepared 
in April, and are consecrated by the priests pre- 



THE INHABITANTS OF THE SEA. 109 

viously to being thrown into the sea. On the 
preceding evening, the persons employed draw 
lots for the name of the saint, who is to be consi- 
dered the patron of the fishing for the ensuing 
day ; and this saint, whoever he may be, is alone 
invoked to promote the success of the undertaking. 
Notwithstanding their great size, these fish swim 
in shoals of sometimes more than 1000 together. 
Pliny, the Roman naturalist, asserts, that the fleet 
of Alexander the Great attempted in vain, to pass 
through a shoal of them in any other manner than 
closely arranged in order of battle. Of the im- 
mense number of Thunnies, some idea may be 
formed, when it is stated, 300,000, or 400,000 are 
supposed every year to pass through the Straits of 
Gibraltar. These fish are not uncommon on the 
western shores of Scotland, but not in shoals as in 
the Mediterranean.' 

" I cannot look at the fisherman's occupation 
without lively interest, inasmuch as it calls up the 
remembrance of scenes and events, intimately 
connected with the most important part of the 
history of man. When I have watched his pe- 
riodical visit to the shore, down the slippery 
pathway of the rocks, worn by the feet of many 
generations, to wait the ebb of the tide and gather 
the produce of his nets : when I have seen 
him unmoor his slight vessel at eventide, and 
depart to spend the cold watches of the night in 






110 THE INHABITANTS OF THE SEA. 

toil and peril • when I have observed his return, 
with a countenance either brightened with suc- 
cess, or darkened by having ' toiled all the night 
and caught nothing;' when I have marked the 
simplicity of his dress and manners, and the lowly 
occupations of his hut, while filling up his leisure 
in mending his nets, I have found myself, in ima- 
gination, carried back to the shores of the Sea of 
Galilee, and seemed to hear the Saviour calling, 
from their vessels and their nets, the men whom 
he afterwards commissioned and qualified to call 
the world to follow him. 

" It was during an interval of his public labours, 
that Jesus, as he was wont, retired to the picturesque 
shores of the large lake, which bears the name of 
the sea of Tiberias, or Galilee. Here, surrounded 
by the blue mountains and the rippling waters, he 
meditated on the benevolent mission he had un- 
dertaken, and for which he had quitted the ever- 
lasting hills and the bliss of heaven — the glory 
which he had with the Father before the world 
was. While pondering in his mind the means 
and persons, whereby he should carry on his gra- 
cious purposes towards mankind, he perceived 
Simon and his brother Andrew, and, shortly after- 
wards, John and his brother James, prosecuting 
their humble but useful calling, the former two 
' casting a net into the sea, for they were fishers/ 
and the latter two ' mending their nets/ Jesus 



THE INHABITANTS OF THE SEA. Ill 

engaged them in his service. The multitude, 
from the neighbouring towns and country, here 
broke in upon his retirement ; and the Saviour, far 
from being displeased with their importunity, 
seated himself in Peter's vessel, at a short distance 
from the shore, and thence addressed himself to 
the assembled crowds. Affecting spectacle ! Jesus 
here taught these simple fishermen, by his word 
and his example, the heavenly art to which he was 
about to call them, when he should make them 
* fishers of men.' He convinced them of his 
divine authority and dignity, by a remarkable dis- 
play of his power, in the miraculous draught of 
fishes. On this, as on several subsequent occasions, 
he manifested himself to be the Governor of nature, 
and intimated the recovery to man, through him, 
of his forfeited ' dominion over the fish of the sea.' 
Well might such a display of omnipotence pro- 
duce in Peter the deep self-abasement, which led 
to his memorable exclamation, * Depart from me ! 
for I am a sinful man, O Lord ! ' 8 

8 " Peter could not but conclude there was some peculiar pre- 
sence of God, with a person who could perform such a miracle ; and 
a consciousness of sin made him afraid to appear in the presence of 
such an one, lest some infirmity or offence should expose him to 
some more than ordinary punishment. (Compare Judges vi. 22. 
xii. 22. and 1 Kings xvii. 18.) — It is also well-known, that the ancients 
thought it improper and unsafe (where it could be avoided) for good 
men to be in the same ship with persons of an infamous character ; 
nor would the heathen, sometimes, permit the very images of their 



112 THE INHABITANTS OF THE SEA. 

But which shall we most admire, — the power, 
which rendered these men willing to quit their 
earthly all, to attend the footsteps of the yet 
unacknowledged Messiah ; or the grace, which 
selected such instruments to carry on a work, 
which has no parallel in the history of the 
universe ? Imagination paints them, when, with 
their sturdy arms, they drew their ships to land, 
forsook all, and followed him ; and the soul that 
values their Redeemer and its own, lifts up a fer- 
vent prayer for divine aid, to be equally willing to 
take the like steps, whenever duty may demand a 
similar sacrifice. By an exertion of the same 
divine power, Jesus might have constrained the 
great ones of the earth to leave their thrones, and 
the learned to quit their schools of philosophy, to 
attend him through the world, and become the 
ministers of his new and spiritual kingdom. 
' But God hath chosen the foolish things of the 
world, to confound the wise ; and God hath chosen 
the weak things of the world, to confound the 
things which are mighty : and base things of the 
world, and things which are despised, hath God 
chosen ; yea, and things which are not, to bring to 
nought things which are ; that no flesh should glory 
in his presence.' Let it then interest our hearts in 

deities to be carried in the vessel with such, or even with those con- 
cerning whom there was any strong suspicion." See Doddridge s 
Family Expositor, on Luke v. 8. 






THE INHABITANTS OF THE SEA. 113 

behalf of this class of men, when we reflect, that 
from even such were chosen several of that glorious 
company of the Apostles, and the noble army of 
martyrs, who were the greatest benefactors of man, 
and whose word and whose blood were the seed of 
the church. The very hand that penned the last 
and richest of the Gospels, the three Epistles which 
may aptly be called the Epistles of love, and the 
sublimities of the Apocalypse, was once engaged 
in the humble pursuits of the fisherman, and has 
now left those writings in the hands of the suc- 
cessive fishers of men, like so many nets of exqui- 
site and indissoluble texture, to gather successive 
multitudes to the church of Christ. And when 
our curiosity leads us to watch the result of the 
fisherman's labours, and see him draw in his net, 
let us not fail to associate with the scene our 
Lord's solemn and instructive parable. ' The 
kingdom of heaven is like unto a net that was 
cast into the sea, and gathered of every kind : 
which when it was full, they drew to shore, and 
sat down, and gathered the good into vessels, but 
cast the bad away. So shall it be at the end of 
the world : the angels shall come forth, and sever 
the wicked from among the just : and shall cast 
them into the furnace of fire : there shall be 
wailing and gnashing of teeth.' " 



CHAPTER XI. 



THE FLOOD. 



An agreement had been made, that on Tuesday, 
dinner should be ordered at an earlier hour than 
usual, and that the associated families should 
meet at their accustomed retired haunt among the 
rocks, to witness the rise of tke highest spring 
tide, and to hear Charles Willoughby read a paper 
on the Deluge. Mr. Willoughby with his sons 
and daughter, were the first on the point of land, 
which overhung their place of rendezvous. On 
the arrival of the Hamiltons, they all for a while 
stood in admiring suspense, contemplating the ex- 
panding tide, as it swelled from the ocean beneath 
the breathing air, and rolled in billows to their 
feet. At length, after having freely interchanged 
their spontaneous reflections upon the scene, they 
seated themselves in their well-known place of 
security, and Charles read his promised paper, on 

THE FLOOD. 

" Of the grand historical events, which a 
believer in Revelation will associate in his mind 



THE FLOOD. 115 

with marine scenery, that which stands next to 
the creation of the great deep, is the Deluge. 
This event is stupendously awful, viewed either in 
its moral or its physical causes and results, and 
especially instructive to the Christian, who will 
see in the transactions of this tremendous sera, 
many beautiful illustrations of redemption. It 
may, therefore, tend to enlarge and exalt our views 
of an historical fact, with which we have been 
familiar from our infancy, if we ponder over the 
sacred record with the ocean before us." 

Here Charles paused, and at his request, Miss 
Willoughby read from a pocket Bible, produced 
by Pascal Hamilton, the sixth and seventh chap- 
ters of the book of Genesis. 

Charles Willoughby then resumed the reading 
of his paper. 

" These are the very waters, which once 
overwhelmed the world. We see, lying at our 
feet, the very besom of destruction, with which 
the hand of a justly wrathful God swept the entire 
surface of this guilty earth. The calm but mighty 
swell of the ocean resembles the slumbering breath- 
ings of the lion, now tamed and lulled to sleep. 
Could these waters speak, what a commentary 
would they afford us on the inspired page ! How 
eloquently would they tell us of the sin, which 



116 THE FLOOD. 

provoked, and of the horrors which followed the 
judicial interference of Him, whose frown is death ! 
But we have enough recorded to serve the ends of 
faith and edification. The ghastly ruins of the 
human and brute animal world, which once 
strewed the vast plain of waters, have indeed dis- 
appeared, except a few relics of the latter, here and 
there discovered by the prying geologist : yet have 
we the authentic document, which describes the 
catastrophe, and we may peruse and re-peruse with 
intense interest, every line and every word of the 
brief narrative. The Hebrew bards derived many 
of their sublimest images from the circumstances, 
with which imagination, or probability, or direct 
inference surround the event; and their deep-toned 
strings still vibrate over the sea to the ear of a 
believer. 

" It ever has been, as it ever must be, a maxim 
of the divine government, that, ' The curse cause- 
less shall not come.' Prov. xxvi. 2. God might 
have given us merely an account of the blow 
which he struck, and left it for us to infer that he 
had a just cause for inflicting it. It has, however, 
pleased him to record his reasons, the moral causes, 
which gave rise to the unparalleled calamity. A 
flood of iniquity had laid waste the moral world, 
and levelled and sunk every thing sacred among 
men, except in one solitary family, before the flood 
of waters devastated the earth, and swept away 



THE FLOOD. 117 

the inhabitants into the abyss. Sin increased and 
spread together with the human race, and that 
not only numerically, but in magnitude and depth. 
When men began to multiply upon the face of the 
earth, iniquities multiplied with them. Where 
population is most dense, there evil is most preva- 
lent. ' We were made to be helpers ; but by sin 
we are become tempters of one another, drawing 
and being drawn into innumerable evils.' Still, 
things would not have reached the flood mark of 
moral pravity, had the church stood aloof from the 
world — had the sons of God kept themselves apart 
from the children of men. But the grand cause, 
which precipitated the world into the gulph of 
ruin, was the unhallowed union of the professing 
people of God in marriage with his avowed 
enemies. Each made, probably, some apparently 
outward and unimportant sacrifice, that they 
might the more easily and decently approximate. 
This sacrifice was only apparent on one side, while 
it was real and fatal on the other. ■ The sons of 
' God saw the daughters of men, that they were 
fair, and they took them wives of all whom they 
chose.' In this manner the offspring of pious 
Seth and the descendants of impious Cain, the 
seed of the woman and the seed of the serpent, 
mingled in one mass, and the whole soon became 
corrupt. For a time, the two parties had been 
kept distinct, like the waters of two contiguous 



118 THE FLOOD. 

but separate streams ; but at last they united in 
one channel, and all distinction was lost in the 
vast abyss of universal corruption. It seems that 
this enormous evil originated with the sons of God. 
They made the first advances. They also proved 
themselves to be ■ but flesh.' The principle of 
spiritual vitality was gone. 'The church being 
thus corrupted, and in a manner lost in the world, 
there was nothing left to resist the torrent of de- 
pravity. Man appeared now in his true character. 
The picture which is drawn of him in Gen. vi. 5. 
though very affecting, is no more than just. If it 
had been drawn by the pen of a prejudiced, erring 
mortal, it might have been supposed to exceed the 
truth ; but that which is written was the result of 
the perfect and impartial survey of God. Hear, ye 
who pretend that man is naturally virtuous ! That 
the wickedness of man has, in all ages, though at 
some periods more than others, been great upon 
the earth, can scarcely be called in question : but 
that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart 
should be only evil, and that continually, is more 
than men in general will allow. Yet such is the 
account here given. — Mark the affecting grada- 
tion ! Evil: evil without mixture — 'only evil:' 
evil without cessation — ' continually :' evil from 
the very fountain head of action — ' the imagi- 
nation of the thoughts of the heart.' Nor is it a 
description of certain vicious characters only, but 



THE FLOOD. 119 

of 'man/ as left to himself; and all this 'God 
saw/ who sees things as they are. This doctrine 
is fundamental to the gospel : the whole system 
of redemption rests upon it. 9 

" This state of things, in which the most elevated, 
as well as the lowest points of the moral world 
were inundated, produced such a change in the 
divine dealings with our race, as is wont to follow 
in human affairs, when the workman is altogether 
displeased with his work ; so that, speaking after 
the manner of men, ' it repented the Lord that he 
had made man on the earth, and it grieved him at 
his heart/ A corresponding resolution ensued. 
* I will destroy man, whom I have created, from 
the earth/ Heaven heard the terrific resolve, 
and trembled for the fate of a world, which in- 
dulged no fears for itself. But yet the gathering 
vengeance was suspended. The windows of heaven 
and the fountains of the great deep, though 
labouring with their accumulated treasures of 
wrath, remained sealed. The long-suffering of 
God waited. His Spirit strove with man, by the 
preaching of his word, by his providence without, 
and by conscience within. The faithful few — 
the Seths and the Enochs of the elder world — one 
after another were removed from the earth, and 
the impious exulted over their graves, as though 

9 See Fuller, on the Book of Genesis. 



120 THE FLOOD. 

their melancholy forebodings had perished with 
them. They asked, what some now ask, ' Where 
is the promise of his coming? For since the 
fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were 
from the beginning of the creation.' They, there- 
fore, went on as before. ' They ate, they drank, 
they bought, they sold, they planted, they builded, 
they married wives, they were given in marriage, 
until the day that Noe entered into the ark, and 
the flood came and destroyed them all.' By these 
expressions, indeed, we are not necessarily to un- 
derstand that all ran to the same excess of riot, or 
were all alike wrought up to the same pitch of 
daring profaneness and infidelity. But all were 
f sowing to the flesh ; all were seeking the gratifi- 
cations of sense as their supreme object; all were 
enslaved, either to ' the lust of the flesh, the lust 
of the eye, or the pride of life ; ' all were sunk in 
false and fatal security; all were deaf to the 
warning voice that bade them flee from the wrath 
to come ; all suffered the day of grace to pass ; 
and consequently all were alike involved in one 
promiscuous ruin. The threatened judgment, 
which they had so long despised, came upon them 
in a day w r hen they looked not for it, and in an 
hour when they were not aware. 

" And now the seventh morning broke — the last 
of that final week, which had been set apart for 
the embarkation of Noah. Probably it was the 



THE FLOOD. 121 

Sabbath. The work of that eventful week was 
finished. Nothing now remained for him to do 
but to make his last entrance. Possibly, the 
sun arose upon the earth with his usual splendour, 
and the gay and busy world expected no change. 
They proceeded in their habitual course of Sab- 
bath-violation, laughing at the credulity of Noah 
and his family. Ah ! who first saw the little 
cloud, that appeared as a speck, or ' as a man's 
hand/ on the distant horizon ? The gentle breeze, 
that fanned the brow of the labourer as he went 
forth to his toil, soon increased to a gale, which 
ere long blew in furious gusts, and appeared to 
proceed at once from every quarter. The lighter 
clouds, those precursors of the armies of the skies, 
passed rapidly across ; the sun seemed to be turned 
into blood ; and, in a short time, the atmosphere 
was filled with a descending body of water, so dense 
as almost totally to intercept the light. The 
sounds of pleasure and of toil were rapidly stilled, 
and all, even to the brute creation, turned a fear- 
ful and foreboding eye towards the lowering 
heavens. Those who inhabited the sea coasts, 
perceived extraordinary appearances in the ocean. 
Its waters rose to an unwonted elevation, and 
swelled in mighty undulations, as though agitated 
by sub-marine earthquakes. At length, the short 
suspense terminated, and the infatuated tenants of 
the world found that God was not to be trifled 

G 



122 THE FLOOD. 

with, and that his word was no fable. On 'the 
same day were all the fountains of the great deep 
broken up, and the windows of heaven were 
opened.' What a scene of consternation and 
dismay must that day have exhibited on the part 
of those, who were then too late awakened to a 
sense of their guilt and folly, in refusing, or 
neglecting the appointed and only refuge ! ' The 
manner in which the rains set in, would leave little 
or no hope of their being soon over. It was not 
a common rain : it came in torrents, or as we 
should say, in a manner as though heaven and 
earth were come together. The waters of the 
subterranean cavities from beneath, and of the 
clouds from above, all met together at God's com- 
mand, to execute his wrath upon guilty man.> — 
The great deep seems to mean that vast confluence 
of waters, which are said to have been gathered 
together on the third day of the creation, into one 
place, and were called seas. (Chap. i. 9, 10.) These 
waters not only extend over a great part of the 
surface of the earth ; but probably flow, as through 
a number of arteries and veins, to its most interior 
recesses, and occupy its centre. This body of 
waters, which was ordained, as I may say, unto 
life, was turned, in just displeasure against man's 
sin, into an engine of destruction. Bursting forth 
in tremendous floods, it swept multitudes away; 
while from above, the clouds poured forth their 



THE FLOOD. 123 

torrents, as though heaven itself were a reservoir 
of waters, and God had opened its windows/ or 
flood-gates. The Poet of ' The World before the 
Flood/ has thus described the scene, as from the 
prophetic lip of Enoch. 

Jehovah lifts his standard to the skies ; 

Swift, at the signal, winds and vapours rise ; 

The sun in sackcloth veils his face at noon, — 

The stars are quench'd, and turn'd to blood the moon ; 

Heaven's fountains open, clouds dissolving- roll 

In mingled cataracts from pole to pole. 

Earth's central sluices burst, the hills uptorn, 

In rapid whirlpools down the gulph are borne ; 

The voice, that taught the deep his voice to know, 

1 Thus far, O Sea ! nor farther, shalt thou go/ — 

Sends forth the floods, commission'd to devour, 

With boundless licence and resistless power ; 

They own no impulse but the tempest's sway, 

Nor find a limit but the light of day. 

The vision opens : — sunk beneath the wave, 

The guilty share an universal grave ; 

One wilderness of water rolls in view, 

And heav'n and ocean wear one turbid hue ; 

Still stream unbroken torrents from the skies, 

Higher beneath the inundations rise ; 

A lurid twilight glares athwart the scene, 

Low thunders peal, faint lightnings flash between. 

Methinks I see a distant vessel ride, 

A lonely object on the shoreless tide ; 

Within whose ark the innocent have found 

Safety, while stay'd Destruction ravens round ; 



124 THE FLOOD. 

Thus, in the hour of vengeance, God, who knows 
His servants, spares them, while he smites his foes* 

Montgomery. 

" But neither pen nor pencil can describe, nor 
imagination picture the horrors of that tremendous 
scene. We might ponder over the various cha- 
racters, and their appropriate feelings, who were 
then overwhelmed. Probably, no emotions were 
stronger, or more agonizing than theirs, who had 
once professed, but subsequently renounced the 
religion of penitent Adam, of martyred Abel, of 
devout Seth, of heavenly-minded Enoch, and of 
believing and obedient Noah. Apostasy has no 
reserve of consolation for the hour of woe. 

" We are fully aware, that attempts have been 
made to invalidate the Mosaic history of the 
Deluge, as indeed, of every part of the sacred 
volume, which records the events of the olden time. 
But God ' hath not left himself without witness/ 
even in mute nature. When man refuses to God 
the honour due unto his name and to his word, 
the very stones are prepared to cry out, to the 
rebuke of human infidelity and impiety, and to the 
vindication of the divine glory. We cannot take 
our seat upon the rocky shore, on the bare moun- 
tain top, or in the torrent-worn valley, without 
receiving, from every side, the silent, but forcible 
testimony of nature to revelation. The Hebrew 



THE FLOOD. 125 

minstrel's song, in which he introduces the hea- 
venly bodies, declaring the glory of God, and the 
firmament shewing his handy work, is equally 
applicable to the huge masses of terrene materials, 
composing the surface of our globe. ' No speech : 
no words : their voice is not heard : yet their line 
is gone out through all the earth, and their words 
to the end of the world.' The organic remains of 
a former world are so conspicuous as to attract 
the eye, not merely of the prying naturalist, but 
even of the roaming school-boy. They are con- 
stantly thrown up by the shovel of the miner, 
when he explores the penetralia of the earth ; and 
cluster beneath the feet of the traveller, when he 
traverses those mountainous ridges, which with 
their aspiring summits scale the clouds, and raise 
the standard of allegiance to God and to his word, 
against infidel man, in the very citadels of the 
skies. In the soft, alluvial soil of our vallies and 
plains, as well as in the indurated piles of our hills 
and mountains, the Deluge has left its own irrefra- 
gable testimony. The huge Mammoth preserved 
in a state of incorruption amidst Siberian snows, 
and the little Nautilus imbedded in the Andes, 
speak one silent language — the same with that 
of the Mosaic record : ' The waters prevailed ex- 
ceedingly upon the earth, all the high hills that 
were under the whole heaven were covered.' The 
te stimonies of earth, therefore, to the truth revealed 



126 THE FLOOD. 

from heaven, are, as the Arabian Patriarch desired 
his testimony to his Redeemer might be, ' graven 
as with an iron pen, and lead, in the rock for ever.' 
As to the futile cavil, that no stock of water could 
be found sufficient to overflow the earth, to the 
degree represented by Moses, not to calculate 
upon the vast quantity of subterranean waters, 
contained in the interior of the earth, ' it is a rea- 
sonable supposition, that of the earth's surface 
two-thirds are seas ; now, if we suppose one com- 
mon depth to be the tenth part of a mile, we shall 
find that there is water sufficient to cover the 
whole globe, to the height of six hundred feet.' 10 
The civil history of the world also lends its corro- 
borative evidence, in the comparatively modern 
date of the most ancient nations ; in the recent 
invention of arts and sciences ; and in the tradi- 
tions which are universally prevalent, no less 
among savage than among polished heathen 
nations, respecting an event corresponding with 
the Mosaic Deluge. 

H It has been well observed, what an awfully 
impressive comment on the leading doctrines, as 
well as leading facts of revelation, does Natural 
History afford ! Whence could such a calamity 
originate, but in the will of the Supreme Arbiter 
of the universe ? And as that will is swayed only 

10 Dr. O. Gregory. 



THE FLOOD. 127 

by moral principles, what cause, save moral evil 
of enormous magnitude, could have drawn down 
upon the race of men, vengeance so tremendous ? 
* The universality of this overwhelming convulsion, 
and the co-extensiveness of the destruction, prove 
the state of transgression to have been universal. 
It was not a partial visitation upon a separate por- 
tion of offenders, like the fiery tempest on Sodom 
and Gomorrah. It was the descent of avenging 
justice, to envelope a world lying wholly under 
the penalty of sin. 

" By this universal convulsion, shaking the 
earth to unknown depths, and piling the reliques 
of the ocean on the summits of the mountains, it 
is evident that the human race must have been 
totally extinguished, had not the Creator been 
pleased, in the midst of judgment, to remember 
mercy, and by some mode of miraculous inter- 
ference, or by some specific direction and provision, 
to preserve certain individuals for the continuation 
of the race, when the avenging dispensation 
should have passed away. 

" The convulsion must have been occasioned, or 
accompanied, by a tremendous and universal de- 
luge; by a deluge precisely corresponding with 
the Scriptural account of the penal flood, for the 
production of which, the fountains of the great 
deep were broken up, and the windows of heaven 
were opened. To overspread the plains of the 



128 THE FLOOD. 

Arctic Circle with the bodies of elephants and 
rhinoceri, and with the shells of Indian seas ; to 
accumulate on a single spot, in promiscuous con- 
fusion, the marine productions of the four quarters 
of the globe ; what conceivable instrument would 
be efficacious, but the rush of mighty waters? 
And, however widely the windows of heaven 
might be opened; however vast, however persever- 
ing, might have been the torrents precipitated 
from the clouds ; to whatever altitude above the 
summits of the highest mountains the waters 
might gradually be uplifted, by inexhaustible rains 
from on high : by what instrumentality were the 
mighty waters impelled with the force requisite 
for whirling the spoils of different regions of the 
earth to their antipodes, but by the breaking up 
of the fountains of the great deep, by the agency 
of those commotions, of those explosions, of those 
disruptions below, which, heaving up the ocean 
from its profoundest recesses, hurled its billows, 
with resistless momentum, in every direction round 
the globe; and shattering and dislocating the 
superincumbent strata, sought to elevate, even to 
the level of the pinnacles of the Alps and the 
Andes, the primeval bed of the seas ? ' 

"Whether, then, we muse on the sea-shore, 
and ponder over the mighty instrument before us, 
by which the globe was desolated ; or in inland 
scenes pore on the animal and vegetable reliques 



THE FLOOD. 129 

of the primal earth, there treasured up, as in a 
vast museum, let us not fail to recognize the 
striking evidence, thus brought home to our own 
senses, of Jehovah's hatred of sin, and his love of 
mercy." 

Charles Willoughby here paused, and, antici- 
pating some remarks, which were on the lips of 
more than one of the party, said that he had 
thrown some further reflections on the flood, con- 
nected more immediately with the preservation of 
Noah and his family, into another paper. 

" I would recommend to our young people/' 
said the Vicar, " to select and bring together, in 
a continuous series, such testimonies as they may 
meet with in their course of reading, to this and 
other grand Scriptural narratives, whether the 
evidence is afforded by the historian in his records, 
by the savage in his traditions, or by the natu- 
ralist in his researches. The Rev. T. Gisborne, 
many of whose remarks, I observe, Mr. Charles 
Willoughby has appropriately quoted, has happily 
availed himself of these sources of illustration in 
his valuable little work, entitled ' The Testimony 
of Natural Theology to Christianity.' " 

A lively conversation of some length ensued, in 
which all adduced those testimonies and illustra- 
tions, which their memories retained from books 
or from observation, bearing upon the Deluge. 
g2 



130 THE FLOOD, 

Julia now observed, that she thought the tide had 
reached its highest point, as she in vain tempted 
the sportive breakers to pursue her nimbly retiring 
foot. Every eye was immediately directed to the 
magin of the flood, to ascertain a fact, which, 
simple as it was in itself, various circumstances at 
that moment invested with more than usual in- 
terest. The mighty channel of the deep was full. 
The immense mass of waters reposed upon its bed, 
and while it swelled to its widest limits, under the 
silver sceptre of the Queen of night, obeyed the 
still more secret and more potent sway of the God 
of nature. The spectacle was imposing, grand, 
and elevating to the mind. Nor less had it a ten- 
dency to make the contemplator feel his own 
littleness, and exclaim, as did the Vicar with 
equal devoutness and simplicity, ** Lord, what is 
man, that thou art mindful of him ? and the son 
of man, that thou visitest him ? " He then added, 
with considerable animation, " Let us ask, with 
the eagle-winged prophet of the Elder Zion, — Who 
hath measured the waters in the hollow of his 
hand ? and meted out heaven with the span ; and 
comprehended the dust of the earth in a measure ; 
and weighed the mountains in scales, and the hills 
in a balance ? " and " All nations before him are 
as nothing, and they are counted to him less than 
nothing, and vanity/' He is no other than Jeho- 
vah, whose wondrous love towards the children of 



THE FLOOD. 131 

men, has engaged him in the benevolent and 
astonishing design of elevating the fallen and lost 
family of earth to the bliss and the glory of 
heaven. He, of whom these magnificent things 
are spoken — He feeds his redeemed flock like a 
shepherd ; He gathers the lambs with his arm, 
and carries them in his bosom. 

*! And after all," interposed Mr. Hamilton, 
" the greatness and the littleness, the majesty and 
the meanness of man ; the one arising from his 
primary origin, the divine favour towards him, 
and his attainable prospects ; and the other spring- 
ing out of his voluntary fall, his degraded state, 
and his liabilities to deeper and irretrievable ruin, 
appear more forcibly contrasted with each other, 
and with the unmixed majesty of God, in the 
scheme of redemption, than in the wide field of 
creation. Each drop from the bleeding cross 
speaks greater wonders, than all the congregated 
waters, which are under the firmament and above 
the firmament. 

Bound ev'ry heart! and ev'ry bosom burn! 

O what a scale of miracles is here ! 

Its lowest round high planted on the skies ! 

Its tow'ring summit lost beyond the thought 

Of man or angel I Oh ! that 1 could climb 

The wonderful ascent with equal praise ! 

Praise ! flow for ever (if astonishment 

Will give thee leave) my praise ; for ever How, — 



132 THE FLOOD. 

Praise ardent, cordial, constant, to high heav'n 
More fragrant than Arabia sacrific'd, 
And all her spicy mountains in a flame." 

The conversation taking a somewhat varied 
turn, and running particularly on the vivid impres- 
sions made upon the mind, by scenes and events 
associated with passages of the divine word, Mr. 
Willoughby observed, " I seldom or never view 
the waters from an elevated position, but I am 
reminded of one of my former rambles. The day- 
resembled this. I had ascended to a considerable 
height a lofty range of hills, in the county of 

, and, having tied my horse to a gate, I 

clambered over into a field, for the purpose of 
taking a view of the scene, uninterrupted by high 
banks and hedges. It was in the vicinity of a 
recently-opened copper mine, and a part of the 
field was occupied with plats of potatoes, cultivated 
by the miners. One of these, clad in his mining 
dress, was hoeing his plants, in an interval of his 
subterranean labours. There was an air of intel- 
ligence, common among men of this class, mixed 
with sadness in his countenance, which drew my 
attention towards him. Strangers soon manifest 
the social propensities of our nature, when they 
meet each other in solitude. The poor are ever 
communicative when their superiors meet them 
with kindness and condescension ; and two human 



THE FLOOD. 133 

beings, however great their disparity in rank, can 
scarcely be thrown together, without affording 
each other an opportunity of mutual information 
and improvement. We entered into friendly chat 
respecting his employment. After making some 
inquiries, which my curiosity dictated, and which 
the man's frankness readily answered, I alluded 
to the personal danger of mining. He allowed that 
it had its dangers, and stated, that he had known 
many lose their lives by falling down the shafts. 
I said, ' My friend, have you ever seriously re- 
flected on the peril of your soul, lest, by such a 
sudden death, you should fall lower than the 
grave ? * He paused from his employment, rested 
upon his hoe, arid remained for some moments 
buried in reflection. At last he looked up. The 
sea was before us at the foot of the hills, and per- 
haps this circumstance, in part, suggested the 
language of his answer. ' Sir/ he replied, ' I am 
no stranger to the truths of religion. Once, I 
think, I was no stranger to the power and enjoy- 
ments of religion. But I have lost both. I am 
very wretched. The leading persons in the little 
company of Christians with whom I associated, 
fell into sin, and I followed them. First my heart 
grew cold, and then my life became careless, and 
at last irreligious. I have a wife — .' He stopped 
for a moment, and I said, ' Perhaps she has been 
your snare.' 'No:' he rejoined, with much 



134 THE FLOOD. 

emotion, ' she is the best of women. Her exam- 
ple is my constant reproach. Were I like her it 
would be well. Then had my peace been as a 
river, and my righteousness as the waves of the 
sea f ' 

"I endeavoured to enter fully into this poor 
backslider's case. Without attempting to ex- 
tenuate his guilt, or to lessen his own sense of its 
enormity, I strove to encourage his return to Him, 
who with ineffable compassion has left these re- 
markable words upon record, and specifically for 
men of his character. " O Israel, return unto the 
Lord thy God ; for thou hast fallen by thine ini- 
quity. — I will heal their backsliding, I will love 
them freely : for mine anger is turned away from 
him." I then placed a suitable tract in his hand ; 
and, while he warmly thanked me for my counsel, 
I mounted my horse and resumed my ride." 

" We owe you our acknowledgments," said 
Louisa to Mr. Willoughby, " for this admonitory 
incident; and now, perhaps, Mr. Charles will 
favour us with his reserved remarks on the pre- 
servation of the Patriarch of the Flood." 

" I can with difficulty hesitate for one moment to 
comply with a request so kindly made ; " answered 
Charles, " but my sister has hinted to me, that 
our friend Theophilus has written some lines, 
which may, with great propriety, be introduced 
here." 



THE FLOOD. 135 

Theophilus, with a smile, cheerfully produced 
what he had written ; and, not being allowed to 
make the apologies which were ready upon his 
lips, read his humble performance to his listening 
and indulgent friends. 

THE LAST ANTEDILUVIAN. 

One mountain rock in lonely grandeur stood, 
Majestically peering o'er the flood ; 
Long dar'd the assailing deep around defy, 
And brav'd the thund'ring torrents of the sky : 
Too far above the accustom'd flight of wing, 
To be th' abode of any living thing. 
Yet in that hour of woe, when fear inspir'd 
Hope beyond hope, and reckless courage fir'd, 
Two parent eagles, while the whirlwind roar'd, 
On weary pinions to the height had soar'd, 
Bearing their callow brood, and then through air, 
O'er the wide waste of waters yell'd despair. 

And one of human form, the last and worst 
Of that devoted race, by God accurs'd, 
On vent'rous foot had scal'd the trackless height, 
Nor scar'd the prey-birds to their wonted flight. 
Terror had tam'd them : for their glaring eyes 
Shrank daunted from the lightning-riv'n skies. 
In tow'ring pride — his haughty soul untam'd, fc 
Though heavVs artillery round his forehead flam'd— 
He stood and smil'd — a smile of demon hate, 
Caught from the lake, where fetter'd legions wait 
Jehovah's final wrath. Of giant mould, 
Nor less than giant guilt, he fiercely roll'd 



136 THE FLOOD. 

His eye, that bash'd the flutt'ring eagle's glare, 

Nor hope implied, nor yet betray'd despair. 

Nine centuries of years had shed their snow, 

Of fleecy whiteness, on his ample brow : 

Still had they left the strength of manhood's prime, 

Though mark'd with care, yet unimpair'd by time. 

Irad his name — not he" of Cain's dark seed — 

Of fairer origin, and purer creed. 

He oft had wond'ring seen, in early years, 

Mankind's first parents' penitential tears : 

From their own lips had heard, and wept the while, 

Of Evil's fatal tree, of Satan's guile, 

Of Eden lost, the Cherub's flaming brand, 

And their sad wand'rings o'er earth's thorn-curs'd 

land. 
He too the field where Abel bled had trod ; 
Had seen the father of the men of blood, — 
Had mark'd the branded curse upon his front, 
That never yielded to the purging font. 

Enos had watch'd o'er Irad's infancy ; 
Had taught in pray'r to bow his supple knee, — 
His infant tongue to lisp Jehovah's name, 
His youthful hand to raise the altar's flame. 
And he, like some fair tree in shelter'd vale, 
That blooms unblasted by the northern gale, 
Gave the full promise of a fruitful age — 
Guide of the young — companion of the sage. 
Oft from his bosom burst the mournful sigh ; 
Oft fill'd with gushing tears his brilliant eye ; 
And oft, as though enkindled from above, 
Glow'd in his breast the flame of gen'rous love 

11 Gen.iv.18. 



THE FLOOD. 137 

To God and his ; and o'er his melting soul 
Seraphic transports seem'd at times to roll. 
From Enoch's face, that radiated light — 
Light not of earth — soft beaming on the sight, 
Irad appear'd to catch a kindred ray, 
As on his ear the Prophet pour'd his lay — 
The rapt'rous tale of converse high with heav'n, 
His walk with God, and views of future given : 
But saw him not, when Seraphs bore away 
The deathless Seer to the realms of day ; 
Nor watch'd, his falling mantle to obtain. 

In evil hour he sought the tents of Cain. 
The 12 daughters of the sons of men were fair, 
And Irad rush'd into the silken snare. 
Then giant strength inspir'd the love of fame : 
He panted for the mighty's blazon'd name. 13 
Then scorn of peaceful arts — then lust of pow'r 
Seiz'd every thought, and busied ev'ry hour : 
Pray'r, and the bleating lamb, were heard no more, 
Off'rings of pride alone his altar bore. 14 
With haughty gait the martial plain he trod : 
The world his portion, now became his God. 
Soon gave his mind ambitious projects birth, 
That fill'd with violence 15 the groaning earth. 
Myriads of saints in martyr-chariots fled, 
And left their ashes in the grave's cold bed. 
The earth was Irad's, save one narrow strand, 
Where Noah dwelt, the jest of ev'ry land. 
Him Irad's scorn, but not his pity spar'd, 
As oft his keen, sarcastic lip declar'd. 



12 Gen. vi. 2. 13 Gen. vi. 4. u Gen. iv. 3. 5. 
14 Gen. vi. 11. 



138 THE FLOOD. 

" See, where the dotard rears yon bulky mass ! 

" Well, let the hoary fool unheeded pass. 

" A noble pyre ! — and noble victims too ! 

" Our kindling brands shall prove the Prophet true ! 

" Where is the promise of His coming ?— Where ? 

" Earth and the skies continue as they were. 

" Then let the driv'ller preach, and weep, and pray ; 

" Ours be the pleasures of the live-long day. 

" This world enough for us : — the next we leave 

" To the few fools that tremble and believe!" 
His lie was now his faith — his wish his creed : 

So has the righteous will of heav'n decreed 

Th' apostate's doom, to credit his own lie, 

And, bound in strong delusion, 16 live and die. 

Thus Irad fill'd the measure of his pride, 
Till rode the Ark upon the rising tide. 
He saw the window' d heav'ns outpour their rains — 
The swelling waters flood the golden plains : — 
Then he believ'd — but with relentless scorn ! 
He left his race despairing and forlorn. 
He heard no cry — he stretch'd no hand to save 
His wife and offspring from the gorging wave. 
He fled o'er hill and dale, from height to height, 
And soon outstripp'd the vulture in her flight, 
That staid to raven on the corse-swoll'n tide, 
Till glutted to the full, she sank and died. 

Now, on that lonely top, sublime he stands 
Like some tall Pharos peering o'er the lands ; 
Folds Ins gigantic arms upon his breast, 
And calms his leaping arteries to rest. 
He knows not fear : nor hope desires to know : 
Content to have surviv'd the world below : 

16 2 Thess. ii. 11. 



THE FLOOD. 139 

Content to have outliv'd his friends and foes : 
This soothes his raging passions to repose. 
Firm as the rock beneath his rooted feet, 
Unmov'd he feels the billows round him beat, 
Nor bends his pillar'd neck, or tow'ring head, 
Till vengeance smites, and hurls him to the dead ! 
Earth's last convulsive throe subverts the rock, 
And whelms the giant Irad with the shock. 
He, the last victim of just Heav'n's dread ire ! 
Behold ! the sated floods of wrath retire ! 



CHAPTER XIII 



THE ARK. 



Charles, having observed that he had cast 
his thoughts into a rather different form from his 
former paper, to relieve them of the formality of 
consecutive reflections, at the request of the party, 
proceeded to read what he had written, on 

THE AEK. 

" At an early hour I found myself the first 
rambler on the shore. The tide was at its ebb, 
and a vessel, which it had left upon the strand, 
together with the distance of the waters, the 
silence of the morning, and the recollection of my 
meditations on the preceding night, called up 
before my mind the Scripture memorials of the 
Patriarch Noah. The annals of that Patriarch 
present a sort of Oasis in the moral desert of the 
Antediluvian History, when ' God looked upon 
the earth : and behold it was corrupt : for all 
flesh had corrupted his way upon the earth.' This 
was the only spot on which Jehovah's eye rested 



THE ARK. 141 

with complacency, and where angels lingered in 
their visits to our earth. ' Noah found grace in 
the eyes of the Lord/ ' He was a just man ; and 
perfect in his generations : and Noah walked with 
God.' But whence did it arise, that the arid 
sands of the surrounding desert, driven, as they 
were, in every direction, by the 'violence' that 
prevailed in the earth, did not overwhelm this 
single spot? Where was the source of those 
waters, which preserved its beauty and fertility in 
the midst of general barrenness ? That naturally 
Noah was in no respect superior to others^ was 
sufficiently evinced by his subsequent history. He 
found mercy, that is, sparing mercy with God, 
because he was a righteous man : but he was a 
righteous man, because he had previously found 
regenerating and preventing mercy with God. 
For, as the Tenth Article most clearly and scrip- 
turally states, ' The condition of man, after the 
fall of Adam, is such, that he cannot turn and 
prepare himself, by his own natural strength 
and good works, to faith and calling upon God. 
Wherefore we have no power to do good works, 
pleasant and acceptable to God, without the grace 
of God, by Christ, preventing us, that we may 
have a good will, and working with us when we 
have that good will.' 

" Noah was a j ust or righteous man, and the 
first so called since the fall, though many had 



142 THE ARK. 

stood on a level with him in the generations 
which had now passed away. In the legal and 
primary sense of the term, none of human birth 
have been righteous, no not one, except the first 
Adam before he sinned, and the second Adam 
throughout the whole of his unsinning course. 
Noah's was the righteousness of faith, the righte- 
ousness which was imputed to him as a believer 
in the promises of God, especially as those pro- 
mises centred in the Saviour. Of this he gave 
abundant evidence in the general tenor of his life ; 
but the master proof was his prompt obedience to 
the unparalleled command of God, when, * being 
warned of God, of things not seen as yet, moved 
with fear, he prepared an Ark, to the saving of his 
house.' To revert, for a moment, to the doctrine 
in which we all are individually interested, a 
believer is righteous, or justified in the sight of 
God, through the righteousness of our blessed Lord 
and Saviour, Jesus Christ : and he is righteous, 
or justified in the sight of man, through the obe- 
dience of faith, or the holy conduct which proceeds 
from faith. Nor was the Patriarch one of those 
numerous doubtful characters, whose ambition it 
seems to be, to create a neutral ground, where 
they may take their stand, and fortify themselves 
against the evils and trials contingent on decidedly 
embracing the side of either of the two great 
parties into which men are divided. He was ' a 



THE ARK. 143 

perfect man.' He had not the perfection of in- 
nocence, but the perfection of a truly regenerate 
soul, which consists in sincerity and soundness 
of character, as contra-distinguished from the 
hollowness of hypocrisy; and in that firm and 
established consistency, which constitutes the 
maturity of moral excellence. None hesitated 
respecting the part which Noah would take, on 
any and on every occasion that might call for a 
display of principle. But that which formed the 
crown of Noah's character was, that c he walked 
with God.' Like Milton's oft-adduced example 
of solitary fidelity, amidst general apostasy, 

the Seraph Abdiel, faithful found 

Among the faithless, faithful only he ; 

Among innumerable false, unmoved, 

Unshaken, unseduc'd, unterrifiedj 

His loyalty he kept, his love, his zeal ; 

Nor number, nor example, with him wrought 

To swerve from truth, or change his constant mind, 

Though single. 

" When all else had apostatized, and lived 

i without God in the world, Noah maintained 

3 communion with heaven, by cultivating a de- 

i votional spirit, by a life of faith, and by an evident 

aim, in all things, to conform himself to the divin e 

will. * Thus did Noah : according to all that 

God commanded him, so did he,' 



144 



THE ARK. 



re, m 



" The principles of acceptable obedience, are, i 
all cases, essentially the same; while the particular 
course of events which calls those principles into 
exercise, may be widely distinguished from the 
ordinary tenor of human life. Of this kind was 
the path which Noah was required to pursue, 
and he followed it unhesitatingly, and without 
deviation. He believed, and he obeyed. His 
faith produced a holy, filial fear of God, under the 
influence of which he prepared an Ark, to the 
saving of his house. 

" The Ark was a gigantic building, computed 
to be equal to forty of our largest ships of the line, 
and it was probably the first vessel that ever 
navigated the waters. What an undertaking, 
single handed, in the midst of an infidel world ! 
It was rendered still more remarkable by the 
length of time spent in the erection, for this 
exceeded a century. Noah's faith was to be kept 
in exercise as long as the forbearance of Jehovah 
should last towards a corrupt world. His mind 
was sustained, and the supernatural strength and 
wisdom with which he was endued, and the mi- 
raculous imperishableness of his work, were all 
auxiliary to his faith. God honoured the simple 
faith and prompt obedience of his servant, as he 
afterwards dealt with Abraham, by informing him 
of his purposes : ' Behold I, even I, do bring a 
flood of waters upon the earth, to destroy all flesh, 



THE ARK. 145 

wherein is the breath of life, from under heaven, 
and every thing that is in the earth shall die. 
But with thee will 1 establish my covenant : and 
thou shalt come into the Ark ; thou, and thy sons, 
and thy wife, and thy sons' wives with thee/ 
Noah gladly accepted the covenant, and doubtless 
regarded it as a confirmation of the first covenant 
made with fallen man. It is highly probable that 
he was instructed to look upon the Ark in the 
same light as we ourselves do, even as typical of 
the great Deliverer of man from the fiery, and 
never-subsiding deluge of divine wrath : for he, 
equally with the believer of the present dispensa- 
tion, became ' heir of the righteousness which is 
by faith : ' and if the types of the Patriarchal and 
Mosaical dispensations were designed, as we find 
they were, ' for our admonition' and instruction, 
' upon whom the ends of the world are come/ we 
cannot suppose that the very persons to whom 
they were primarily proposed, were left uninformed 
respecting their purport. I often admire the in- 
troduction in our Baptismal service, of St. Peter's 
allusion 17 to the typical character of Noah's pre- 
servation in the Ark, and the prayer, that the 
subject of Christian baptism ' may be received 
into the ark of Christ's Church, and may so pass 
the waves of this troublesome world, that finally he 

17 1 Pet. iii. 18. 



146 THE ARK. 

may come to the land of everlasting life, — through 
Jesus Christ our Lord.' The little, unconscious 
recipient of baptism is thus committed to the care 
of the Good Shepherd, as were the unconscious 
subjects of Noah's guardianship to his care, to be 
trained for a future world amidst the tumults and 
perils of the present. 

" Many of the typical features of that event 
have been beautifully sketched by the Rev. T. T. 
Biddulph, in the 23d Letter of his ' Theology of 
the Early Patriarchs/ — a work, not more dis- 
tinguished for depth of research and Biblical 
erudition, than for its vivid practical illustrations, 
and rich spiritual improvement of many important, 
though generally neglected portions of divine 
revelation. 

" The Lord Jesus Christ, « like the Ark of Noah, 
passed through the waters of a deluge, a deluge of 
divine wrath, occasioned by sin, which must have 
proved destructive to all mankind, had not his 
mediation been provided, and which will prove 
destructive to all who are not in him, the only 
Ark of safety. But the Ark outlived the deluge, 
and rested at length, with its refugees within it, 
on Mount Ararat. In like manner, the Saviour 
rose from the many waters which threatened to 
overwhelm him, and will prove an Ark of salvation 
to all who believe in his name, by landing them in 
safety on Mount Zion. There seems to be some- 



THE ARK. 147 

thing still further and deeper in the mystery of 
redeeming love, implied by this analogy. The 
deluge of water which drowned the world, and 
threatened with destruction the Ark which rode 
triumphantly over its billows, was itself the means 
of security to Noah and his family, by bearing 
that impenetrable structure on its tumultuated 
surface. The waves dashed against the typical 
Ark, and doubtless often ran over it ; but they 
could not sink it. Thus the wrath of God, which 
will overwhelm all who are out of Christ, and 
which spent itself on Him without submerging 
Him, because his person was divine, and his atone- 
ment all-sufficient for the satisfaction of divine 
justice, is itself overruled to promote the salvation 
of sinners who believe in him. * All thy waves 
and thy billows are gone over me.' God caused 
to * meet on him the iniquity of us all.' He was 
made answerable for our guilt ; and by that act 
of infinite justice, a way was made for the revela- 
tion of mercy in the justification of the guilty.' 

" Sin was the cause of both the typical and anti- 
typical salvation, provided by the mercy of God. 
The contrivance and efficient application of the 
appointed means, in each case, were the result of 
divine wisdom and power ; and those means were 
perfectly adapted to their end. The Ark was 
sufficiently capacious to receive, and competently 
framed to secure all, who were designed, and who 



148 THE ARK. 

were willing to become its occupants. ' The anti- 
typical Ark is so capacious, that all who will may 
find admission into it; and it is built of such 
materials that it will outlive every storm, and in- 
fallibly secure its inhabitants from every danger 
that otherwise awaited them. The door is now 
open, and the ' preacher of righteousness/ even 
of ' the righteousness which is by faith/ is com- 
missioned to continue the proclamation, that ' yet 
there is room ; ' and that our Ark is sufficiently 
capacious and strong, ' to save to the uttermost' 
all who flee to its shelter. — The assemblage of 
creatures, who were admitted into the Ark of 
Noah, may fitly represent the various characters 
of those who find salvation in our Lord Jesus 
Christ. Some of all sorts were received. Animals, 
clean and unclean, found a refuge there. — None 
were rejected by Noah, on account of their nature, 
or previous qualities and instincts. The door was 
set open ; and the lion and the bear received as 
hearty a welcome, as comfortable accommodation, 
and as full security, as the useful ox or the harm- 
less sheep. Thus, in Christ Jesus, all who are 
cordially disposed to seek salvation in his name, 
are equally welcome to it, and are sure of obtain- 
ing it. — The influence by which Noah's refugees 
were collected in the Ark, is the same with that 
by which sinners are gathered to Jesus Christ. 
Jn both cases the power of God is exerted. — ' No 






THE ARK. 149 

man can come unto me, except the Father which 
hath sent me draw him : ' and ' all that the Father 
hath given me shall come to me.' 

" ' The different manner in which the various 
animals must have come to Noah for admission to 
his Ark, may also afford us an instructive lesson. 
While the antelope and the eagle, instigated by 
their newly-acquired instinct, hastened rapidly to 
their new habitation, the snail and the sloth may 
be supposed to have made their removal thither a 
very tedious journey. Yet all who were drawn, at 
length came, and were saved. So some among 
those whom the Spirit of God awakens to a con- 
cern about salvation, impelled by fear or won by 
love, concur at once in the gospel proposal, and 
fly without delay to the cross, and are saved. 
While others, from a variety of natural character, 
or obstacles interposed by circumstances of educa- 
tion, station in life, or relative connexion, are more 
tardy in their spiritual motions, and are long 
before they arrive where only peace and safety 
can be found.' 

" Time and space would fail us in an attempt 
to describe the many other striking analogies, 
between the Ark of Noah, and the Ark of Christ's 
Church: or, we might, with much entertainment 
and profit, descant upon both being kept open till 
the last participant of saving mercy reached the 
door ; upon the inevitable destruction of all who 



150 THE ARK. 

comply not with the divine command, * Come 
thou into the Ark ; ' upon the change effected in 
the dispositions of all who enter ; upon the rich 
provision made for their various and numerous 
wants ; and upon the dismay which followed the 
Lord's descent to the Ark of Noah, when he 
' shut him in/ as preflgurative of the terror which 
will convulse the miserable souls who will ulti- 
mately be excluded from heaven. Imagination 
loves to linger with the venerable navigator of the 
flood, during the last hours which he spent with 
a world which his faith and example ' condemned/ 
while his prayers and his entreaties sought to save. 
How, as he walked along the shores of the sea, 
did he mingle his tears with its waters, and bur- 
thened the breezes with his heavy sighs, breathed 
over the destinies of the millions around him ! 

H I have looked back upon the last day of the 
antediluvian world. I have pictured to myself 
terror and despair seated upon the rising flood, 
and advancing onward with every wave, which 
swept away successive and receding multitudes. 
If the impending stroke of wrath gave them time 
for reflection, were they not as much ' amazed at 
the strangeness of his salvation,' whose ' course 
was directed ' by divine wisdom, ' in a piece of 
wood of small value// 8 as at 'the strangeness' 

16 Ecclus, x. 4. 



THE ARK. 151 

of their own destruction ? Did not ' they, repent- 
ing and groaning for anguish of spirit, say within 
themselves, This was he, whom we had sometimes 
in derision, and a proverb of reproach : we fools ac- 
counted his life madness, and his end to be without 
honour : how is he numbered among the children 
of God, and his lot is among the saints ! ' 19 

" I have reviewed that most memorable year of 
Noah's life, spent with the scanty remnant of the 
world, upon the widest ocean upon which the 
sun of our system ever shone. What a season 
then presented itself for the examination and im- 
provement of personal and family religion ! How 
great was the trial of their faith, when, even after 
the waters had prevailed for forty days upon the 
earth, and had risen twenty-two feet and a half 
above the highest mountains, it continued at that 
height for one hundred and fifty days longer ! 
But there was the same power to sustain their 
faith amidst a deluge of tumultuous thoughts, as 
to preserve the floating machine amidst the storms 
and waves. The mighty hand of God, which 
brings his people into difficulties, for the display 
of his glory and for the advancement of their con- 
formity to his image, can and will afford competent 
support and guidance. We may be disposed to 
conclude, that our trial has reached its acme, and 

19 Ecclus. v. 3, 4, 5. 



152 THE ARK. 

fully accomplished its end ; and to wonder at, if 
not to question, the wisdom or necessity of its 
lengthened duration. But, as Noah could not see 
to the bottom of the flood, and observe the vast 
operations there going on in the outer crust of the 
earth ; so neither can we fathom the providence 
of God, or discern the ends which he is accom- 
plishing. It is our wiser part to stand with the 
Patriarch and the Apostle, to admire, adore, and 
submit to what we cannot understand. ' O the 
depth of the riches, both of the wisdom and know- 
ledge of God J How unsearchable are his 
judgments, and his ways past finding out !' 

" ' And God remembered Noah, and every 
living thing that was with him in the ark.' A 
strong, dry wind dispersed the clouds, and ' the 
waters assuaged.' * The fountains also of the 
deep, and the windows of heaven were stopped, 
and the rain from heaven was restrained ; and the 
waters returned from off the earth continually.' 
The vials of wrath had now poured their last drop 
upon our guilty world. The holocaust offered to 
Infinite Justice had appeased the divine anger; 
and the cheering beams of the sun, which for 
twelve whole months had been veiled from the 
earth, once more broke forth, and symbolized the 
return of Jehovah's favour. While we here peace- 
fully watch the ebbing tide, we may let loose our 
imagination upon the retreat of that spring-tide 



THE ARK. 153 

of wrath, which had now accomplished its tremen- 
dous errand, and retired, never to resume its 
desolating sway. We seem to realize all the 
emotions of the surviving family, when, with a 
gentle shock, the Ark grounded upon the summit 
of Ararat ; when they ' opened the window of the 
Ark,' and descried the tops of the mountains 
emerging from the subsiding deluge ; and when 
they beheld the plastic waters moulding into those 
renovated forms which they still retain, the hills, 
the valleys, and the plains, as they retreated to 
the place appointed them. We watch the first wings 
that fanned the tranquillized atmosphere ; the 
raven flying to and fro, till the waters were dried 
up ; the dove, with characteristic timidity, return- 
ing to the Ark, at first with the flutterings of fear, 
and then with the olive-leaf plucked offin its green- 
ness and youth from the reviving parent stem, 
and subsequently taking her farewell of her tem- 
porary refuge, and inviting her protectors to follow, 
and survey with her the renewed earth. I hear 
the voice of Jehovah, calling forth the parents of 
the new world, to take possession of their ransomed 
inheritance. I witness, with delight, the joy of 
the liberated animals, when they again find them- 
selves at liberty ; the wilder kinds darting through 
the air, or across the plains ; and the more domestic 
species lingering, and beginning to seek their food 
in the vicinity of man. I observe the more intel- 
h 2 



154 THE ARK. 

ligent gladness of the four human pairs, as they 
more leisurely relinquish their friendly hiding- 
place ; while sensations of mingled gratitude and 
joy, or of solemnity and holy fear, alternately 
quicken or retard their steps. They probably dis- 
cern a very considerable alteration in the state of 
the earth. Though its reviving verdure affords to 
their eyes a grateful refreshment, after a year's 
estrangement from every thing of the kind, yet 
they cannot but notice, that the globe is not what 
it was. The floods, in their rapid descent, have 
swept many an extensive region of its pristine and 
fruitful soil, and left it barren. The earthquake 
attendant upon the breaking up of the fountains 
of the great central deep, has left awful traces of 
its desolating fury, and thrown the once far more 
majestic and sublime ramparts of the earth into 
comparative disorder and ruin. The disorganized 
rock now lifts its seared and leafless peak where 
formerly waved the spreading cedar and the lofty 
pine : and where was wont to wave the rich, golden 
harvest, that nourished a race which numbered 
its years, not by decades, but by centuries, now 
undulates the barren sand beneath the hot blast of 
the very nostrils of death. It does not escape my 
notice, that they bring with them unto the exter- 
nally renewed world a consciousness of guilt, and 
still inherent evil. No offerings had been pre*- 
sented to God in the Ark, but those of prayer and 



THE ARK. 155 

praise : and their first act upon the exsiccated 
soil, is to * build an altar unto the Lord.' The 
consecrated erection smokes with a holocaust of 
every kind of clean beast and fowl, kindled by 
approving fire from heaven. ' The Lord smelled 
a sweet savour/ and accepted it, through the an- 
ticipated virtue of the greater sacrifice of which it 
was typical. Ephes. v. 2. I hear the renewal 
and enlargement of the covenant of grace ; and 
when I stand upon these mighty cliffs, that never 
since have bowed beneath the wave, and to whose 
hoary aspect our beloved Albion owes its name, 
T set my seal to the faithfulness of the divine pro- 
mise, that ' while the earth remaineth, seed-time 
and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and 
winter, and day and night, shall not cease.' " 

This concluding remark elicited a pleasant 
interchange of observations between the elders of 
the party, to which the juniors listened with 
evident interest, till the whole of them rose, to 
lengthen their walk, by a circuitous route, home- 
ward. Mrs. Hamilton claimed the pleasure of 
receiving her friends in the evening, and after the 
business of the tea-table was dispatched, Miss 
Willoughby read a brief obituary, which she had 
written down from memory, and which she re- 
ceive4 from the lips of a friend, personally 
acquainted with the circumstances. 



CHAPTER XIV. 



THE INVALID. 



" Eliza was in vain conveyed by her tender and 
anxious friends, from scene to scene. The soft 
air of the southern coast of Devon but partially 
revived her sinking frame, or retarded the progress 
of disease during the winter ; and when the sum- 
mer succeeded, it was but a transient invigoration 
that resulted from a visit to the more bracing 
coast of the north. She received and yielded to 
all the plans suggested and carried into effect for 
her benefit, but it was with a smile, which, while 
it testified her gratitude, betrayed her settled con- 
viction, that, to use her own expression, ' it was 
not in the change of seasons, or of scenes, to renew 

her health.' When at S , she twice, by her 

own earnest desire, attended divine service. She 
had not been in the house of the Lord for many 
months, and those were the last hours she ever 
spent in his earthly courts. The sermon which 
she heard in the morning, was very unsatisfactory. 
It contained but one solitary reference to that 



THE INVALID. 157 

e name, which is above every name.' A relative, 
who accompanied Eliza to church, lamented this 
deficiency, particularly on her account, who had 
been so long debarred from the public means of 
grace; and further added some valuable remarks, 
on the great importance of having the pulpits of 
places resorted to for the benefit of health, occu- 
pied by clergymen, whose example and whose 
sermons, alike tend to lead the affections away 
from a vain and transient world, with its cares 
and its follies, to that Saviour, who is health to 
the sick, comfort to the mourner, and life to the 
dead. Eliza replied, ' I fully concur with you in 
sentiment, and deplore the too frequent strain of 
discourses heard at public watering-places, which, 
like that of the Preacher this morning, contain 
far more of the dry ethics of the schools, than of 
the dewy 20 doctrines of inspiration. But, as it 
respects myself, I have so richly enjoyed the devo- 
tional- services of the morning, that I leave the 
sanctuary refreshed and edified. Perhaps I never 
before entered so deeply into the spirit of our in- 
comparable Liturgy. It seemed to breathe the 
very spirit of filial contrition, approaching a most 
tender and relenting Father, as able to bless as he 
is willing to forgive.' 

" It was not very long after this, that she was 

40 Deut. xxxii. 2. 



158 THE INVALID. 

admitted into the heavenly courts of the Lord, 
and was numbered with the children of his family, 
who are redeemed from the earth. Her religious 
history had been remarkable, and contained some 
facts worthy of being placed on record. 

" Eliza was nursed in the lap of wealth and in- 
dulgence, and personally knew as little of the 
sorrows of human life, as she felt of the storms 
which she viewed from the secure shelter of her 
father's mansion. She received an education 
suited to her sex and rank, and after its comple- 
tion, moved with her parents in the highest circle 
of society around them. The world had few, if 
any sources of pleasure which were not within her 
reach. In person she was attractively beautiful ; 
in disposition she was most lovely ; and in mental 
endowments she was highly cultivated. Her na- 
tural taste led her away from ephemeral works of 
fiction, to the pursuit of real and solid knowledge, 
such as is attainable by deep reflection, by accurate 
research, and by the perusal of standard writers 
on the various branches of general literature. The 
too common and frivolous pursuits of her sex and 
age, were, to her refined and elevated mind, debas- 
ing and revolting ; and though, in compliance with 
the wishes of her family, and with the customs of 
society, she mingled with others in gay and festive 
scenes, those scenes had no hold upon her heart, 
and she gladly withdrew from them, while she 



THE INVALID. 159 

concealed the satiety, and even disgust which they 
frequently produced. Her enjoyments were all 
highly intellectual. Cheerful without folly, and 
wise without pedantry, she was at once the charm 
and the lesson of the domestic and social sphere. 
But while she moved in that sphere, the object of 
general admiration and love, she mentally lived in 
a world of her own, the creation of fancy, — not the 
fancy which enervates the heart, but a vivid ima- 
gination, peopled with the great and the good of 
other times. Her's was of the class of contempla- 
tive minds depicted in ' The progress of genius ; ■ 
which, scorning alike the writers and the pursuits 
that ' snare and stupify the mind,' and retiring 
into intellectual communion with kindred spirits, 
thus hold converse with their favourite authors : 

— Hail, ye mighty masters of the lay, 
Nature's true sons, the friends of man and truth ! 
Whose song, sublimely sweet, serenely gay, 
Amus'd my childhood, and inform'd my youth. 
O let your spirit still my bosom sooth ; 
Inspire my dreams, and my wild wanderings guide ! 
Your voice each rugged path of life can smooth ; 
For well I know, wherever ye reside, 
There harmony, and peace, and innocence abide. 

" But on one department, and that the most ample 
and the most important of true wisdom, Eliza had 
bestowed only a superficial attention. This was 



160 THE INVALID. 

the knowledge of God. Not that of her it might 
be pronounced, as of many, ( God was not in all 
her thoughts.' On the natural and moral attri- 
butes of ' the high and lofty One that inhabiteth 
eternity/ she could even rapturously dwell. But 
she contemplated God only as the Deity, whom 
reason seats on the throne of the universe, and 
whom imagination clothes with mysterious ma- 
jesty. Of ' the light of the knowledge of the 
glory of God, in the face of Jesus Christ,' not one 
ray had beamed upon her soul. The light that 
was in her was darkness. Yet was there in this 
' Unknown God,' whom, like the Athenians, she 
* ignorantly worshipped,' so great and so attrac- 
tive a glory, that she often lost herself in delightful 
meditation upon his supreme excellences. Nay, 
more ; innumerable as were her natural ties to life, 
she longed — ardently longed for death. With no 
consciousness of sin to point the sting of death, 
and with no fear concerning her acceptance in the 
sight of Infinite Purity, she considered the mortal 
change nothing more than a short, dark passage to 
realms of unclouded light ; and eagerly desired to 
die, that she might behold, and be eternally ab- 
sorbed in the Great Eternal Mind, whom she 
venerated, adored, and loved. How many live 
and die under the delusive, though fascinating 
influence of a religion like Eliza's, compounded of 
self-esteem and false notions of Him, whose name 



THE INVALID. 161 

and whose nature are Holy ! It is truly astonish- 
ing to observe, as we often may, reflective and 
inquisitive minds, even when closely and con- 
stantly surrounded by the institutions of the 
gospel, and from childhood familiarized to the 
narrative of its facts, and the reiteration of its 
doctrines, resting in a species of refined, though 
unconscious Deism. 

" With a character formed of these peculiar habits 
and dispositions, Eliza arrived at the acme of 
youth, richly gifted with every personal charm 
and every intellectual endowment, when an event 
occurred, which, in the marvellous arrangements of 
Divine Providence, turned the whole tenor of her 
future life. On her return from the house of God, 
one Sabbath day, she entered a room where a 
copy of the Bible lay open upon the table. In a 
moment of ennui, Eliza looked into the sacred and 
hitherto neglected volume. The part at which it 
was open, was the Book of the Prophet Isaiah. 
The contents assumed an interest to which she 
had previously been a stranger, and she gave the 
whole writings of the Prophet an eager perusal. 
She felt astonished at her own ignorance of what 
now appeared to her the finest traits of genius, and 
the sublimest strains of poetry. Much that had 
formerly attracted her admiration, and even enthu- 
siastic attachment in merely human authors, was 
traced to its true source. It was not long before 



162 THE INVALID. 

she gave the book a second, and still more attentive 
reading. But her impressions now began to wear 
a new character. Her reflections were these : 
* Here, indeed, is all the pathos, the beauty, the 
sublimity of the most exquisite poesy. Here have 
the muses of the human lyre gathered flowers and 
garlands for their own brows. But this is not all. 
Here is something more than poetry — something 
more than the purest intellectual taste either seeks 
or desires. A mysterious thread runs through the 
whole, which I can just trace, but for the nature 
and origin of which I cannot account/ These 
reflections left impressions, more and more vivid 
and deep at every succeeding perusal, and at 
length occasioned a degree of mental uneasiness, 
to her altogether unprecedented. * What,' Eliza 
asked herself, ' can be the cause of this disquie- 
tude ? A disquietude, of which I never before 
have been conscious, and which is augmented at 
every page I turn over in this wonderful volume ! 
But it claims its original from the God of nature. 
Beyond a doubt, He will assist me in the under- 
standing of his own revelation. I will humbly 
and earnestly seek his aid.' Eliza bent her knee 
at the footstool of God, and it was the first time 
that she ever approached it with any measure of 
genuine humility. Now she felt ignorant, and 
desired instruction ; and, coming in the posture of 
a learner, and not of one self-confidently wise, she 



THE INVALID. 163 

was added to the incalculable number, who have 
found the truth of the declaration, ' The meek 
will He guide in judgment ; and the meek will He 
teach his way.' 

" Thus assisted from above, by the gracious 
operation of the Holy Spirit, and, like Lydia, 
having her heart opened to attend to the things 
which were spoken or written by the servants of 
the Lord, Eliza soon had her soul filled with light, 
peace, and joy. The various and intimately con- 
nected truths of the gospel were adjusted into one 
harmonious system, and diffused an influence over 
her heart, which rendered her a new creature. 
The fabric of her spiritual pride crumbled into 
dust at the foot of the cross. All her fine talents 
were humbly laid as free-will offerings upon the 
altar of God. Her naturally amiable dispositions, 
which formerly had all the beauty of the lunar 
iris, now glowed with all the warm and brilliant 
radiance of the solar rainbow. The love of Christ 
became the mildly, but effectually constraining 
principle of her life, which was lengthened only 
to the time when her newly-formed character 
seemed to reach its consummation. Then, like 
fruit whose outward substance begins to decay as 
soon as the seed is ripe, her youthful and beautiful 
form began to fade and waste, beneath the subtle 
bane of her native land. Consumption, gradual 
in its progress, and mild in its agency, brought 



164 THE INVALID. 

her to the grave, or rather, to ' the bosom of her 
Father and her God/ Her mind, however, retained 
all its vigour to the last; and animated, as she was, 
with new fire from above, and having had her 
lips, as it were, touched with a living coal, from 
the same altar as her favourite Isaiah, she adorned 
her profession, and threw around her path, even 
as an invalid, a lustre which seemed to belong 
more to heaven than to earth. Eliza is now with 
her God, adoring the sovereign grace, which did 
not leave her to perish in her former specious, 
but fatally erroneous views of the state of human 
nature, and of the divine nature. 'O Lord ! 
give me understanding, according to thy word.* 
Ps. cxix. 169." 



CHAPTER XV. 



THE SEA OF ATONEMENT. 



The two families had no intercourse on the 
subsequent day. Mr. Willoughby, however, on 
retiring to rest rather earlier than usual in the 
evening, placed in his daughter's hands, a paper, 
which she read to her brothers, and sometime 
afterwards lent to Julia Hamilton. I am not 
prone," said Mr. W. to Caroline, " to obtrude 
the secrets of my heart upon the notice of others. 
The ordinary tenor of our religious experience 
better remains unknown, except to God and to 
ourselves. ' The heart knoweth his own bitter- 
ness, (or the bitterness of his soul;) 21 and a 
stranger doth not intermeddle with his joy/ But 
seasons do occur, when we may with advantage 
communicate our spiritual joys and sorrows to 
those who are likely to sympathize with us, and 
to derive benefit from the communication. I am 
thankful, my dear girl, that I can often place this 

21 Prov. xiv. 10. Margin. 



166 THE SEA OF ATONEMENT. 

confidence in you and your brothers. You may 
read this paper to them, and make any further use 
of it you please. A slight degree of indisposition 
leads me to bid you good night an hour before 
our regular time. May God bless you, and 
keep you." 

THE ATONEMENT. 

" It was ' a day of darkness and of gloominess, 
a day of clouds, and of thick darkness, as the 
morning spread upon the mountains/ My eye 
caught no glimpse of heaven. I wandered forth, 
alone and in sadness, amongst the rugged rocks 
which skirt a distant part of the shore, and yielded 
my mind to reflections of a character correspondent 
with the scene. But, correspondent as that scene 
was with the state of my soul, I soon perceived 
that it was not the cause of my depression. This 
had its rise within. In vain did I alternately 
recline upon a low crag, and listen to the roaring 
billows and the whistling curlew, or pace to and 
fro the intervals between the rocks, endeavouring 
to throw off the sorrow which mantled round my 
soul. At length I seated myself, and resolved to 
examine into the source of mv uneasiness. Like 
David, I repeatedly put the self-scrutinizing 
question — e Why art thou cast down, O my soul ; 
why art thou disquieted within me ? ' 






THE SEA OF ATONEMENT. 167 

" I found that our recent reflections upon the 
seventeenth century of the world had left upon my 
mind a most weighty sense of the holiness of God, 
the evil of sin, and the extent and inveteracy of 
human depravity. I saw myself involved, and 
that as deeply as others, in the corruption of our 
fallen nature. Sin appeared before me in more of 
the blackness of its native character than had 
ever previously met my observation. The song of 
the Seraphim, ' Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord of 
Hosts ! ' seemed to float around me ; but though 
I could sigh forth a cordial ' Amen ! ' to their 
anthem, and approve the unchangeable and un- 
compromising holiness of the Lord, yet every 
murmur of the passing gale seemed to whisper, 
' guilt ! ' and my labouring bosom echoed back 
the sound, ' guilty ! ' The hairs of my head, 
the grains of sand at my feet, the drops of the 
fluid world before me, all failed to compute the 
sum of my iniquities. But, if such be the awful 
impression, which even the mind of man, when 
awakened, forms of the multitude, and magnitude, 
and exceeding guilt of his offences, what must be 
the estimate formed by Him, who searcheth the 
heart, and knoweth what is in man ! If the 
heavens are not clean in his sight, and he chargeth 
even his angels with folly, how much more abomi- 
nable and filthy is man, which drinketh iniquity 
like water ! 



168 THE SEA OF ATONEMENT. 

" It somewhat relieved me to perceive, on strict 
self-examination, that sin, as consisting in oppo- 
sition to the will of God, was, and had long been 
the object of my sincere detestation. That detes- 
tation appeared to extend even to myself, as having 
been the willing slave of sin, and as still too fre- 
quently being brought into captivity to the law of 
sin. Job's confession spontaneously fell from my 
lips : ' I have heard of thee by the hearing of the 
ear ; but now mine eye seeth thee. Wherefore I 
abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes ! ' I 
felt that the favour of God was better than life 
itself. I desired to be holy, even as he is holy. 
But all these considerations failed of giving me 
inward peace ; that peace, of which I had before 
been a thankful, and, at times, a joyful participant. 
They afforded me ground of hope, that I had 
received from the exalted Saviour, the gift of true 
repentance ; yet they could not sustain my con- 
fidence of acceptance with God, because they left 
a burden of conscious guilt upon my mind. And 
it is a surprising circumstance, that the mind of a 
believer will sometimes yield itself up to a current 
of thoughts which will carry him far away from 
the smiling fields of gospel promise, and hurry 
him towards the deep dark gulph of despair. He 
loses sight of the very truths which are wont to 
be most familiar to him, the faithful testimonies 
of God, which he has chosen as his heritage for 



THE SEA OF ATONEMENT. 169 

ever, and which used to be the rejoicing of his 
heart. This was my case. 

" I had, however, frequently derived refresh- 
ment and solace from calling up before my mind 
such scriptural imagery as surrounding objects 
might suggest. I now looked around me for 
objects, which might recal some consolatory ideas 
illustrative of truths, which for a time had ceased 
to exert their accustomed influence upon my heart. 
The sea supplied me with what I sought. I 
recollected the beautiful symbolic description of 
the seat of the divine mercy, and my imagination 
pictured the ' crystal sea' before the throne of 
God, which, in mystic vision, met the eye of the 
Apocalyptic Prophet. Rev. iv. 6. I contemplated 
the symbol as an emblem of the blood of my Lord 
and Saviour, Jesus Christ ; and the grand doctrine 
of Atonement opened before me in the vision of 
faith, to the relief and joy of my soul. My thoughts 
recurred to the temple of Solomon, and the large 
brazen vessel, from its vast size called ' a sea/ 
which stood in the sacred courts. Therein the 
priests washed themselves, and the sacrifices ; and 
it most significantly pointed to the fountain opened 
for sin, and for uncleanness, in the precious 
blood of the Lamb, that was slain. That brazen 
sea was opaque, and its waters could but im- 
perfectly cleanse those who resorted thither. This, 
before the throne, was ' of glass, clear as crystal,' 
i 



170 THE SEA OF ATONEMENT. 

and its divinely precious flood cleanseth from all 
sin. Here all, who enter the presence of God, 
wash their persons, and their services. 

" My heart accordingly experienced a sensible 
relief and delight in meditation on the immaculate 
purity of this vast laver ; for, while it purges away 
the guilt of ■ multitudes that no man can number,' 
itself contracts no stain ; as a drop of ink, falling 
into the ocean, is instantaneously dispersed and 
lost, leaving the green wave in all its native purity 
and transparency. 

" The circumstance also of the sea of atonement 
lying in full view before the throne of God, afforded 
me a grateful theme of contemplation. I inferred, 
that I might approach the seat of supreme majesty 
and justice without fearful apprehension. The 
omniscient eye of consummate holiness, viewing 
the believer, as it were, through this crystal 
medium, rests on him with perfect complacency. 
It now appeared to me, that I could see God and 
live ; and my heart rejoiced in a thankful com- 
pliance with his own gracious invitation — ' Come 
now, and let us reason together : though your sins 
be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow ; 
though they be red like crimson, they shall be as 
wool.' Against such reasoning, brought home to 
my mind, as I trust it was, by the Holy Spirit, 
even the strong arguments of guilt, and fear, and 
unbelief, could not stand. They yielded, and the 



THE SEA OF ATONEMENT. 171 

peace, which passeth all understanding, returned 
and tranquillized my soul. 

" I now recollected the Prophet Micah's sub- 
lime apostrophe to the Lord, and repeated it with 
new emphasis, 'Who is a God like unto Thee, 
that pardoneth iniquity, and passeth by the trans- 
gressions of the remnant of his heritage? He 
retaineth not his anger for ever, because he de- 
lighteth in mercy. He will turn again ; he will 
have compassion upon us ; he will subdue our 
iniquities ; and thou wilt cast all their sins into 
the depths of the sea.' I remember the joy which 
I once witnessed in the tearful eyes of a dying 
saint, when she repeated to a relative, ' O, my 
sister, He delighteth in mercy ! ' A steadfast 
assurance, that mercy is still Jehovah's darling 
attribute, took possession of my mind. I glanced 
at the ocean. I thought of its unfathomable 
depths. How entirely and for ever concealed 
from view are the substances cast into it by the 
mariner, as he navigates its surface. Deeper, far 
deeper, is that ocean of the divine compassion — 
that sea of gracious oblivion, into which the 
Saviour plunges his people's guilt. Pondering 
this inestimable portion of the divine word, I 
observed, that pardon was the Lord's own act. 
I Thou wilt cast all their sins into the depths of 
the sea.' What expression could more forcibly 
convey the perfect remission of a believing sinner's 



172 THE SEA OF ATONEMENT. 

guilt than this ? Charge myself, as I may, with 
every possible aggravation of offence against God, 
I cannot bring against myself a heavier charge 
than does the Lord himself : ' Thou hast made 
me to serve with thy sins ; thou hast wearied me 
with thine iniquities.' How appalling the charge ! 
Yet he meets my self-abased soul, with a decla- 
ration which effectually checks the feelings of 
terror and despondency, and gives birth to emo- 
tions of gratitude and love, ' I, even I, am he 
that blotteth out thy transgressions, for mine own 
sake, and will not remember thy sins.' " 



A* 



CHAPTER XVI. 



THE CRUISE. 



Mr. Willoughby's temporary indisposition, 
so far from impeding, rather promoted the accom- 
plishment of a plan, which had for several days 
been proposed, to take advantage of the first 
seasonable day for a cruise along the coast. 
Thursday presented the desired opportunity, and 
Charles, who had been appointed commissary for 
the occasion, having seen to the embarkation of 
all the necessary stores, went to acquaint the 
Hamiltons, that his father, sister, and brother 
were in readiness on the beach. " Your father," 
said Louisa to Charles, as he conducted his 
friends to the boat, " will, I hope, derive be- 
nefit from our little voyage. We all are deeply 
interested about him, for your sakes, as well as 
his own." 

" A similar hope/' answered Charles, " and 
not our own personal gratification, has induced us 



174 THE CRUISE. 

this morning to urge my father to accompany us. 
He seemed inclined to stay at home alone, for he 
never desires his children to be debarred from 
rational enjoyments, merely because he cannot 
participate in them. We could not, however, 
consent to this, especially as we feel assured, that, 
under the blessing of God, the sea-breeze will 
refresh and invigorate him." 

The two families soon met, and, after the usual 
morning salutation, all entered the vessel ; the 
white sails were spread and trimmed ; the pilot 
boatman took his station at the helm ; and in a 
few minutes they were gliding along the pathless 
waters. Conversation, cheerful without frivolity, 
and sensible without formality, flowed freely, as 
the endless variety of objects appearing in view, 
and constantly changing their aspect and relative 
situation, suggested new topics. Pleased with each 
other, and disposed more to give than to seek accom- 
modation ; thankful to the Father of mercies for 
this fresh opportunity of innocent enjoyment, and 
vying with each other in selecting motives of 
gratitude, rather than in detecting or inventing 
reasons for dissatisfaction ; and desirous of ob- 
taining as much improvement as pleasure from the 
excursion, they felt half unwilling to reckon the 
hours as they passed swiftly and more swiftly by, 
like the yielding waves through which their little 
bark ploughed its way, leaving behind no furrow, 



THE CRUISE. 175 

but only a rippled track, faintly marking out the 
path they had traversed, and on which the eye 
delighted to look backward. One time they 
paused, 

To mark the ship in floating balance held, 
By earth attracted, and by seas repell'd ; 



Another time they speculated upon the lurking 
dangers of " the faithless tides," or the hidden 
wonders and treasures of the unexplored recesses 
and depths of the deep ; and presently they trans- 
ferred their attention to the motions and changes 
of the fleecy clouds that were traversing the sky ; 
and exchanged their remarks on the perpetually 
shifting scenery on the coast. 

After the party had dined, and when conversation 
rather flagged, Pascal Hamilton produced a paper, 
which he had reserved for the present suitable 
occasion, and which served to dissipate that species 
of lassitude, the influence of which our voyagers 
began to feel, and which indeed is the natural 
consequence of long and vivid mental excite- 
ment. 

" I must premise," said Pascal, as he opened 
his paper, " that as our plan does not imperatively 
require the production of exclusively original mat- 
ter, I have availed myself largely of the very 
instructive and entertaining materials brought 



176 THE CRUISE. 

together by the Historian of America, in his first 
and introductory book." 

ON NAVIGATION. 

There go the ships ! Ps. civ. 26. 

" ' The ocean, which surrounds the habitable 
earth, as well as the various arms of the sea, which 
separate one region from another, though destined 
to facilitate the communication between distant 
regions., seem, at first view, to be formed to check 
the progress of man, and to mark the bounds of 
that portion of the globe to which nature had 
confined him. It was long, we may believe, 
before men attempted these formidable barriers, 
and became so skilful and adventurous as to com- 
mit themselves to the mercy of the winds and 
waves, or to quit their native shores in quest of 
remote and unknown regions. 

" Navigation and ship-building are arts so nice 
and complicated, that they require the ingenuity, 
as well as experience, of many successive ages to 
bring them to any degree of perfection. From 
the raft or canoe, which first served to carry a 
savage over the river that obstructed him in the 
chase, to the construction of a vessel capable of 
conveying a numerous crew with safety to a 
distant coast, the progress in improvement is 
immense. Many efforts would be made, many 



THE CRUISE. 177 

experiments would be tried, and much labour as 
well as invention would be employed, before men 
could accomplish this arduous and important 
undertaking. The rude and imperfect state in 
which navigation is still found among all nations, 
which are not considerably civilized, corresponds 
with this account of its progress, and demonstrates 
that, in early times, the art was not so far im- 
proved as to enable men to undertake distant 
voyages, or to attempt remote discoveries. As 
soon, however, as the art of navigation became 
known, a new species of correspondence between 
men took place. It is from this era, that we must 
date the commencement of such an intercourse 
between nations as deserves the appellation of 
commerce. It is to navigation that men are 
indebted for the power of transporting the super 
fluous stock of one part of the earth to supply 
the wants of another. The luxuries and blessings 
of a particular climate are no longer confined to 
itself alone, but the enjoyment often is communi- 
cated to the most distant regions. 

" In proportion as the knowledge of the ad- 
vantages derived from navigation and commerce 
continued to spread, the intercourse among nations 
extended. The ambition of conquest, or the ne- 
cessity of procuring new settlements, were no 
longer the sole motives of visiting distant lands. 
The desire of gain became a new incentive to 
i2 



178 THE CRUISE. 

activity, roused adventurers, and sent them forth 
upon long voyages, in search of countries, whose 
products or wants might increase that circulation 
which nourishes and gives vigour to commerce. 
Trade proved a great source of discovery, it 
opened unknown seas, it penetrated into new 
regions, and contributed more than any other 
cause, to bring men acquainted with the situation, 
the nature, and commodities of the different parts 
of the globe. But even after a regular commerce 
was established in the world, after nations were 
considerably civilized, and the sciences and arts 
were cultivated with ardour and success, navi- 
gation continued to be so imperfect, that it can 
hardly be said to have advanced beyond the 
infancy of its improvement in the ancient world. 

" Among all the nations of antiquity, the struc- 
ture of their vessels was extremely rude, and their 
method of working them very defective. They 
were unacquainted with several principles and 
operations in navigation, which are now considered 
as the first elements on which that science is 
founded. Though that property of the magnet 
by which it attracts iron, was well known to the 
ancients, its more important and amazing virtue 
of pointing to the poles, had entirely escaped their 
observation. Destitute of this faithful guide, 
which now conducts the pilot with so much cer- 
tainty, in the unbounded ocean, during the dark- 






THE CRUISE. 179 

ness of night, or when the heavens are covered 
with clouds, the ancients had no other method of 
regulating their course, than observing the sun 
and stars. Their navigation was, of consequence, 
uncertain and timid. They durst seldom quit 
sight of land, but crept along the coast, exposed 
to all the dangers, and retarded by all the obstruc- 
tions, unavoidable in holding such an awkward 
course. An incredible length of time was requi- 
site for performing voyages, which are now finished 
in a short space. Even in the mildest climates, 
and in seas the least tempestuous, it was only 
during the summer months that the ancients ven- 
tured out of their harbours. The remainder of the 
year was lost in inactivity. It would have been 
deemed most inconsiderate rashness to have 
braved the fury of the winds and waves during 
winter. 22 

" While both the science and practice of navi- 
gation continued to be so defective, it was an 
undertaking of no small difficulty and danger, to 
visit any remote region of the earth. Under every 
disadvantage, however, the active spirit of com- 
merce exerted itself. The Egyptians, soon after 
the establishment of their monarchy, are said to 
have opened a trade between the Arabian Gulf, 
or Red Sea, and the western coast of the great 

82 For a scriptural illustration of this remark see Acts xxvii. 12. 



180 THE CRUISE. 

Indian continent. ' The Phoenicians of Tyre and 
Sidon launched with still greater boldness on the 
treacherous element.' They were a people of 
merchants, who aimed at the empire of the sea, 
and actually possessed it. Even the Jews caught 
something of the spirit of marine enterprise. 23 
The Carthaginians inherited the naval genius 
of their fathers, urged their vessels into the 
Atlantic, and are said to have circumnavigated the 
continent of Africa. The Greeks and Romans 
contributed little, either scientifically or practically, 
to the art of navigation. 

" ' Though Greece be almost encompassed by 
the sea, which formed many spacious bays and 
commodious harbours, though it be surrounded by 
a great number of fertile islands, yet, notwith- 
standing such a favourable situation, which seemed 
to invite that ingenious people to apply themselves 
to navigation, it was long before this art attained 
any degree of perfection among them. Their 
early voyages, the object of which was piracy, 

23 " And King Solomon made a navy of ships at Ezion-geber, 
which is beside Eloth, on the shore of the Red Sea, in the land of 
Edom. And Hiram sent in the navy, his servants, shipmen that had 
knowledge of the sea, with the servants of Solomon. And they 
came to Ophir, and fetched from thence gold, four hundred and 
twenty talents, and brought it to King Solomon." 1 Kings ix. 
26—28. 

" The King's ships went to Tarshish with the servants of Huram ; 
every three years once came the ships of Tarshish, bringing gold, and 
silver, ivory, and apes, and peacocks." 2 Chron. ix. 21. 



THE CRUISE. 181 

rather than commerce, were so inconsiderable, 
that the expedition of the Argonauts, from the 
coast of Thessaly to the Euxine sea, appeared 
such an amazing effort of skill and courage, as 
entitled the conductors of it to be ranked among 
the demi-gods, and exalted the vessel in which 
they sailed, to a place among the heavenly constel- 
lations. Even at a later period, when the Greeks 
engaged in their famous expedition against Troy, 
their knowledge in naval affairs seems not to have 
been much improved. According to the account 
of Homer, the only poet to who n history ventures 
to appeal, and who, by his scrupulous accuracy in 
describing the manners and arts of early ages, 
merits this distinction, the science of navigation, 
at that time, had hardly advanced beyond its 
rudest state. The Greeks, in the heroic ages, 
seem to have been unacquainted with the use of 
iron, the most serviceable of all the metals, with- 
out which, no considerable progress was ever made 
in the mechanical arts. Their vessels were of in- 
considerable burden, and mostly without decks. 
They had only one mast, which was erected or 
taken down at pleasure. They were strangers to 
the use of anchors. All their operations in sail- 
ing were clumsy and unskilful. They turned their 
observations towards stars, which were improper 
for regulating their course, and their mode of 
observing them was inaccurate and fallacious. 



182 THE CRUISE. 

When they had finished a voyage, they drew their 
paltry barks ashore, as savages do their canoes, 
and these remained upon dry land until the season 
of returning to sea approached/ But even after 
Greece had made great and rapid progress in 
maritime power, and her navies were numerous, 
and dreaded by her foes, navigation as a science 
was but little improved, until Alexander the Great 
carried the standard of Macedon to the shores of 
the Indus. His enterprising genius opened the 
treasures of the East to his countrymen, and drew 
the tide of commerce from India to Europe. But 
in the prosecution of his project by Nearchus, to 
open a channel of communication between the 
Indus and the Euphrates by sea, ' striking in- 
stances occur of the small progress which the 
Greeks had made in naval knowledge. Having 
never sailed beyond the bounds of the Mediterra- 
nean, where the ebb and flow of the sea are hardly 
perceptible, when they first observed this pheno- 
menon at the mouth of the Indus, it appeared to 
them a prodigy by which the gods testified the 
displeasure of heaven against their enterprise. 
During their whole course, they seem never to 
have lost sight of land, but followed the bearings 
of the coast so servilely, that they could not much 
avail themselves of those periodical winds, which 
facilitate navigation in the Indian ocean. < — The 
progress which the Romans made in navigation 



THE CRUISE. 183 

and discovery, was still more inconsiderable than 
that of the Greeks. 

" This noble art advanced but slowly, if it ad- 
vanced at all, during the decline and fall of the 
Roman Empire, the fierce and barbarous invaders 
of which, greatly impeded every species of improve- 
ment. In the ages of chivalry and crusade, navi- 
gation again revived, though it was still confined 
within the waters which bounded the approximat- 
ing shores of the three old continents. 

" At length, in the thirteenth and fourteenth 
centuries, a remarkable spirit of discovery was 
awakened in Europe, and many travellers by land 
to distant regions, published accounts of their ad- 
ventures, and excited the curiosity of mankind to 
learn more of the unexplored regions of the globe. 
* While this spirit was gradually forming in 
Europe, a fortunate discovery was made, which con- 
tributed more than all the efforts and ingenuity of 
preceding ages, to improve and to extend naviga- 
tion. That wonderful property of the magnet, by 
which it communicates such virtue to a needle or 
slender rod of iron, as to point towards the poles 
of the earth, was observed. The use which might 
be made of this, in directing navigation, was im- 
mediately perceived. That valuable, but now 
familiar instrument, the Mariner's Compass, was 
constructed. When, by means of it, navigators 
found, that, at all seasons, and in every place, they 



184 THE CRUISE. 

could discover the north and south, with so much 
ease and accuracy, it became no longer necessary 
to depend merely on the light of the stars and the 
observation of the sea-coast. They gradually 
abandoned their ancient, and timid, and lingering 
course along the shore, ventured boldly into the 
ocean, and relying on this new guide, could steer 
in the darkest night, and under the most cloudy 
sky, with a security and precision hitherto un- 
known. The compass may be said to have opened 
to man the dominion of the sea, and to have put 
him in full possession of the earth, by enabling 
iiim to visit every part of it. Flavio Gioia, a 
citizen of Amalfi, a town of considerable trade in 
the kingdom of Naples, was the author of this 
great discovery, about the year 1302. 

" ' At length the period arrived, when Provi- 
dence decreed that men were to pass the limits 
within which they had been so long confined, 
and open to themselves a more ample field, where- 
in to display their talents, their enterprise, and their 
courage/ The Portugese, in the year 1486, under 
Bartholomew Diaz, discovered the passage to India 
by the Cape of Good Hope ; and six years after- 
wards, the great Columbus opened a new world to 
the inhabitants of the old. The poet, to whom 
Africa is so largely indebted for his advocacy of 
her children's cause, has, with great beauty, 
sketched the history of this grand discovery. 



THE CRUISE. 185 

Long lay the ocean-paths from man conceal'd; 
Light came from heav'n, — the magnet was reveal'd, 
A surer star to guide the seaman's eye, 
Than the pale glory of the northern sky ; 
Alike ordain'd to shine, by night and day, 
Through calm and tempest, with unsetting ray ; 
Where'er the mountains rise, the billows roll, 
Still with strong impulse turning to the pole, 
True as the sun is to the morning true, 
Though light as film, and trembling as the dew. 

Then man no longer crept, with timid oars, 
And failing heart, along the shelt'ring shores ; 
Broad to the winds he spread his fearless sails, 
Defied the adverse, woo'd the fav'ring gales, 
Bar'd to the storm his adamantine breast, 
Or soft on ocean's lap lay down to rest; 
While free as clouds the liquid ether sweep, 
His white- wing'd vessels cours'd th' untravell'd deep ; 
Boldly from clime to clime he lov'd to roam, 
The waves his heritage, the world his home. 

Then first Columbus, with the mighty hand 
Of grasping genius, weigh'd the sea and land ; 
The floods o'erbalanc'd : — where the tide of light, 
Day after day, roll'd down the gulph of night, 
There seem'd one waste of waters :■ — long in vain 
His spirit brooded o'er th' Atlantic main; 
When, sudden as creation burst from nought, 
Sprang a new world through his stupendous 

thought, 
Light, order, beauty ! — while his mind explor'd 
Th' unveiling mystery, his heart ador'd ; 
Where'er sublime imagination trod, 
He heard the voice, he saw the face of God. 



186 THE CRUISE. 

Far from the western cliffs he cast his eye 
O'er the wide ocean stretching to the sky ; 
In calm magnificence the sun declin'd, 
And left a paradise of clouds behind : 
Proud at his feet, in pomp of pearl and gold, 
The billows in a sea of glory roll'd. 

' — Ah ! on this sea of glory might I sail, 
1 Track the bright sun, and pierce th' eternal veil, 
1 That hides from mortal sight the radiant bow'rs, 
1 Where in full noon he leads the midnight hours !' 

Thoughtful, he wander'd on the beach alone ; 
Mild o'er the deep the vesper planet shone, 
The eye of evening, bright'ning through the west 
'Till the swee't moment when it shut to rest : 

* Whither, golden Venus ! art thou fled ? 

* Not in the ocean-chambers lies thy bed ; 

4 Round the dim world thy glittering chariot 

drawn, 
' Pursues the twilight, or precedes the dawn ; 

* Thy beauty noon and midnight never see, 

' The morn and eve divide the year with thee.' 

Soft fell the shades, 'till Cynthia's slender bow 
Crested the farthest wave, then sunk below ; 

* Tell me, resplendent guardian of the night, 
' Circling the sphere in thy perennial flight, 

' What secret path of heav'n thy smiles adorn, 

* What nameless sea reflects thy gleaming horn?' 

Now earth and ocean vanish'd, all serene 
The starry firmament alone was seen; 
Through the slow, silent hours, he watch'd the host 
Of midnight suns, in western darkness lost, 
'Till night himself, on shadowy pinions borne, 
Fled o'er the mighty waters, and the morn 



THE CRUISE. 187 

Danced on the mountains : — * Lights of heav'n! ' 

he cried, 
" Lead on ; — I go to win a glorious bride ; 
Fearless o'er gulphs unknown I urge my way, 
Where peril prowls, and shipwreck lurks for prey : 
Hope swells my sail ; — in spirit I behold 
That maiden-world, twin sister of the old. 
By nature nurs'd beyond the jealous sea, 
Denied to ages, but betroth'd to me/ 

The winds were prosp'rous, and the billows bore 
The brave advent'rer to the promised shore ; 
Far in the west, array'd in purple light, 
Dawn'd the new world on his enraptur'd sight : 
Not Adam, loosen'd from th' encumb'ring earth, 
Wak'd by the breath of God to instant birth, 
With sweeter, wilder wonder gaz'd around, 
When life within, and light without he found ; 
The whole creation rushing o'er his soul, 
He seem'd to live and breathe throughout the whole. 
So felt Columbus, when, divinely fair, 
At the last look of resolute despair, 
Th' Hesperian isles, from distance dimly blue, 
With gradual beauty open'd on his view. 
In that proud moment, his transported mind 
The morning and the evening worlds combin'd, 
And made the sea, that sunder'd them before, 
A bond of peace, uniting shore to shore. 



" Few, probably, ever lose the vivid impression 
left upon their minds by their first perusal of 
Columbus's successful voyage, as it has been 
described by the graphic pen of Dr. Robertson. 



188 THE CRUISE. 

The reader seems almost to identify himself with 
the bold navigator, in the joyful result of his long 
and anxious negociations with the Spanish Court; 
in the exultation of that hour, when ' Columbus 
set sail, a little before sun-rise, in presence of a 
vast crowd of spectators, who sent up their sup- 
plications to heaven, for the prosperous issue of 
the voyage, which they wished, rather than ex- 
pected ; ' in the solicitude of his own mind as to 
the success of his unparalleled adventure ; in the 
address, with which, during their protracted pas- 
sage across the untried ocean, he alternately 
excited the hopes, soothed the fears, and controlled 
the passions of his crew ; and in the conflicting 
emotions of his own breast, when at last he gave way 
to the impetuous feelings of his men, and solemnly 
promised to return, if within three days they did 
not discover the object of their enterprise. 

" ' Enraged as the sailors were, and impatient 
to turn their faces again towards their native 
country, this proposition did not appear to them 
unreasonable. Nor did Columbus hazard much 
in confining himself to a term so short. The 
presages of discovering land were now so numerous 
and promising, that he deemed them infallible. 
For some days the sounding line reached the 
bottom, and the soil which it brought up indicated 
land to be at no great distance. The flocks of 
birds increased, and were composed, not only of 



THE CRUISE. 189 

sea fowl, but of such land birds as could not be 
supposed to fly far from the shore. The crew ofj 
the Pinta observed a cane floating, which seemed 
to have been newly cut, and likewise a piece of 
timber artificially carved. The sailors aboard the 
Nigna took up the branch of a tree, with red ber- 
ries, perfectly fresh. The clouds around the 
setting sun assumed a new appearance; the air 
was more mild and warm, and during the night 
the wind became unequal and variable. From all 
these symptoms, Columbus was so confident of 
being near land, that on the evening of the eleventh 
of October, after public prayers for success, he 
ordered the sails to be furled, and the ships to lie 
to, keeping strict watch, lest they should be driven 
ashore in the night. During this interval of sus- 
| pense and expectation, no man shut his eyes ; all 
kept upon deck, gazing intently towards that 
j quarter where they expected to discover the 
! land, which had been so long the object of their 
i wishes. 

[ " About two hours before midnight, Columbus, 
i standing on the forecastle, observed a light at a 
l distance, and privately pointed it out to Pedro 
J Gutteirez, a page of the Queen's wardrobe, 
5 Gutteirez perceived it, and calling to Salcedo, 
comptroller of the fleet, all three saw it in motion, 
I as if it were carried from place to place. A little 
after midnight, the joyful sound of * Land! land!* 



190 THE CRUISE. 

was heard from the Pinta, which kept always 
a-head of the other ships. But having been so 
often deceived by fallacious appearances, every 
man was now become slow of belief, and waited, 
in all the anguish of uncertainty and impatience, 
for the return of day. As soon as morning dawned, 
all doubts and fears were dispelled. From every 
ship an island was perceived about two leagues to 
the north, whose flat and verdant fields, well 
stored with wood, and watered with many rivulets, 
presented the aspect of a delightful country. The 
crew of the Pinta instantly began 'the Te Deum, 
as a hymn of thanksgiving to God, and were 
joined by those of the other ships, with tears of 
joy, and transports of congratulation. This office 
of gratitude to heaven was followed by an act of 
justice to their commander. They threw them- 
selves at the feet of Columbus, with feelings of 
self-condemnation, mingled with reverence. They 
implored him to pardon their ignorance, incre- 
dulity, and insolence, which had created him so 
much unnecessary disquiet, and had so often 
obstructed the prosecution of his well-concerted 
plan ; and passing, in the warmth of their admi- 
ration, from one extreme to another, they now 
pronounced the man, whom they had so lately 
leviled and threatened, to be a person inspired by 
heaven with sagacity and fortitude more than 
human, in order to accomplish a design so far 



THE CRUISE. 191 

beyond the ideas and conception of all former 



" As soon as the sun arose, all their boats were 
manned and armed. They rowed towards the 
island, with their colours displayed, with warlike 
music, and other martial pomp. As they ap- 
proached the coast, they saw it covered with a 
multitude of people, whom the novelty of the 
spectacle had drawn together, whose attitudes and 
gestures expressed wonder and astonishment at 
the strange objects which presented themselves 
to their view. Columbus was the first European 
who set foot in the new world which he had dis- 
covered. He landed in a rich dress, and with a 
naked sword in his hand. His men followed, and 
kneeling down, they all kissed the ground, which 
they had so long desired to see. They next 
erected a crucifix, and prostrating themselves 
before it, returned thanks to God for conducting 
their voyage to such a happy issue.' 

" From the discovery of America down to the 
present day, the improvement of navigation has 
I been rapidly progressive. The commercial and 
! the warlike spirit of the different maritime nations, 
aided by a noble public emulation and zeal in the 
furtherance of discoveries, has given a prominence 
and importance to naval science and pursuits, 
altogether unprecedented in the history of the 
world. Not unfrequently has the fate of empires 



192 THE CRUISE. 

hung upon the issue of the embattled field of 
waters. The sciences and arts of remotest nations 
have been mutually communicated; the arcana, 
and records, and monuments of their history 
thrown open ; their respective products exchanged ; 
and, above all, the long-closed channel of the 
ocean has been opened for the conveyance of the 
tidings of salvation to the ends of the earth. ? A 
large vessel, with all its convenience, constructed 
in such a manner as to go upon the surface of the 
water, and brave the fury of the winds and waves, 
is, perhaps, the master-piece of human con- 
trivance ; 24 and the Psalmist, when contemplating 
the wonders of the ocean, cries out in admiration, 
as if placed in a situation like this of ours — ■' There 
go the ships ! ' 

" Probably, nothing more remarkably distin- 
guishes the march of human skill than a com- 
parison between the war galley of the Greek and 
the Roman, and the first-rate ship of war that 
sails in stately majesty from a British port. If, 
as the battle of Salamis proved, there was wisdom 
in the interpretation given by Themistocles to the 
oracle of Delphi, ' that Athens could be saved 
only by wooden walls/ no less discernment has 
been displayed by the councils of our own land, 
in committing, under providence, the guardianship 

24 Such a machine, propelled by a steam engine of highest power, 
undoubtedly carries away the palm of unequalled skill. 



THE CRUISE. 193 

of Britain to her navies. The comparison may 
also be made, with equal advantage, between the 
' merchant ship ' of Solomon's age, and the bulky 
vessel which imports to our shores the luxuries of 
the land of Sina. Indeed, so vast is the power, 
which we possess as a maritime people, that were 
we disposed to quit our island, our marine would 
be sufficient to transport the whole British popu- 
lation to almost any spot of the habitable globe, 
within a comparatively short time. 

" Cowper, speaking of the benefits of ' trade — 
the golden girdle of the globe,' says, 

These are the gifts of Art, and Art thrives most, 
Where commerce has enrich'd the busy coast ; 
He catches all improvements in his flight, 
Spreads foreign wonders in his country's sight, 
Imports what others have invented well, 
And stirs his own to match them or excel, 
'Tis thus reciprocating, each with each, 
Alternately the nations learn and teach j 
While Providence enjoins to every soul 
A union with the vast, terraqueous whole. 

Heav'n speed the canvass, gallantly unfurl'd 
To furnish and accommodate a world, 
To give the pole the product of the sun, 
And knit th* unsocial climates into one. — 
Soft airs and gentle heavings of the wave 
Impel the fleet, whose errand is to save, 
To succour wasted regions, and replace 
The smile of opulence in sorrow's face. 
K 



194 THE CRUISE. 

" It may afford both interest and instruction to 
a commercial, Christian nation, like Britain, to 
trace back, on the chart of history, the rise and 
fall, in succession, of great maritime cities and 
empires. The sins and the doom of Tyre and 
Sidon, of Carthage and Alexandria, of Tarshish 
and of Venice, of Portugal and Spain, may well 
prove a warning to other states, and particularly 
to our own. Of those maritime powers, .vhich 
successively have risen and sunk in the scale of 
nations, might be said as, by Isaiah, respecting 
ancient Tyre : ' The harvest of the river is her 
revenue; and she is a mart of nations. But be 
thou ashamed, O Zidon ; for the sea hath spoken, 
even the strength of the sea. Is this your joyous 
city, whose antiquity is of ancient days ? Who 
hath taken this counsel against Tyre, the crown- 
ing city, whose merchants are princes, whose 
trafickers are the honourable of the earth ? The 
Lord of hosts hath purposed it, to stain the pride 
of all glory, and to bring into contempt all the 
honourable of the earth. He stretched out his 
hand over the sea ! He shook the kingdoms 
Howl, ye ships of Tarshish : for your strength is 
laid waste.' 

"Let the sin, and the predicted overthrow of 
Tyre, be read in the pages of Ezekiel, and compared 
with the event. Such a comparison may suitably 
produce the alarm so sublimely described by the 



THE CRUISE. 195 

Prophet. ' Then all the princes of the sea shall 
come down from their thrones, and lay away their 
robes, and put off their broidered garments ; they 
shall clothe themselves with trembling ; they shall 
sit upon the ground, and shall tremble at every 
moment, and be astonished at thee. And they 
shall take up a lamentation for thee, and say to 
thee, How art thou destroyed, that wast inhabited 
of seafaring men, the renowned city, which wast 
strong in the sea ! ' " 

Pascal Hamilton here took breath, and requested 
his sister Julia to read, from her pocket Bible, the 
twenty-sixth and two following chapters of the 
Book of the Prophet Ezekiel. When these had 
been read, and Mr. Hamilton had made some 
elucidatory remarks on several passages, his son 
proceeded with the remainder of his paper. 

" Now contemplate the record in which history 
points to the fulfilment of prophecy. ' This city/ 
says Maundrell, ' standing in the sea, upon a 
peninsula, promises at a distance something very 
magnificent. But when you come to it, you find 
no similitude of that glory, for which it was so 
renowned in ancient times, and which the Pro- 
phet Ezekiel describes. On the north side it has 
an old Turkish ungarrisoned castle ; besides 
which you see nothing here, but a mere babel of 



196 THE CRUISE. 

broken walls, pillars, vaults, &c. there being not 
so much as one entire house left : its present inha- 
bitants are only a few poor wretches, harbouring 
themselves in the vaults, and subsisting chiefly 
upon fishing; who seem to be preserved in this 
place by divine providence, as a visible argument 
how God has fulfilled his word concerning Tyre, 
viz. that it should be as the top of a rock, a place 
for fishers to dry their nets on. 

" ' Of this once powerful mistress of the ocean/ 
says Joliffe, in his Letters from Palestine, 1820, 
' there now exist scarcely any traces. Some 
miserable cabins, ranged in irregular lines, digni- 
fied with the name of streets, and a few buildings 
of a rather better description, occupied by the 
officers of government, compose nearly the whole 
of the town. It still makes, indeed, some languish- 
ing efforts at commerce, and contrives to export 
annually to Alexandria, cargoes of silk and tobacco, 
but the amount merits no consideration. — ' The 
noble dust of Alexander, traced by the imagination 
till found stopping a beer-barrel/ would scarcely 
afford a stronger constrast of grandeur and debase- 
ment, than Tyre, at the period of being beseiged 
by that conqueror, and the modern town of Tsour, 
erected on its ashes.' 

" And what is Carthage, the daughter of Tyre? 
A heap of ruins, without an inhabitant except the 
wild beast of the desert. What is Alexandria, 



THE CRUISE. 197 

the pride of Egypt and of the conqueror of the 
East? A paltry town consisting chiefly of one 
long street, the rest lying in ruins. What is 
Venice? — the city, whose Doge, for centuries, with 
great pomp, married the sea, and claimed its sub- 
mission, by dropping a ring into its waters ? It 
remains, indeed, and is still a superb city ; but it 
resembles only the splendid garment of departed 
greatness. For thirty years, even the pageant of 
marrying the Adriatic has been omitted : and with 
more sense than it had for a long time been kept 
up ; for the reality of power had departed from 
the licentious city of the seventy-two islands. 

I stood in Venice, on the bridge of sighs; 
A palace and a prison on each hand : 
I saw from out the wave her structures rise 
As from the stroke of the enchanter's wand : 
A thousand years their cloudy wings expand 
Around me, and a dying glory smiles 
O'er the far times, when many a subject land 
Look'd to the winged Eagle's marble piles, 
Where Venice sate in state, thron'd on her hundred isles ! 

She looks a sea Cybele, fresh from ocean, 

Rising with her tiara of proud towers, 

At airy distance, with majestic motion, 

A ruler of the waters and their powers : 

And such she was ; — her daughters had their dowers 

From spoils of nations, and the exhaustless East 

Pour'd in her lap all gems in sparkling showers. 



198 THE CRUISE. 

In purple was she rob'd, and of her feast 
Monarchs partook, and deem'd their dignity increas'd. 

In Venice Tasso's echoes are no more, 
And silent rows the songless gondolier ; 
Her palaces are crumbling to the shore, 
And music meets not always now the ear : 
Those days are gone. — 

Byron. 



" Where are the naval crowns of Portugal and 
Spain ? Ask the tempest, which, while it expressed 
the wrath of God, defended Britain in the reign 
of her Elizabeth. Ask the avenging angel of 
Africa, and the rising spirit of Transatlantic 
liberty. 

If he spared not them, — 
Tremble and be amaz'd at thy escape, 
Far guiltier England, lest he spare not thee ! " 



CHAPTER XVII 



THE SLAVE SHIP. 



Both Louisa and Julia Hamilton had previously 
been acquainted with the subject of their brother's 
paper, and had made an agreement with him, that 
he should leave them two topics, in a measure 
connected with his own. Accordingly, at the 
conclusion of some general and animated conver- 
sation, which arose out of Pascal's composition, 
Louisa was requested to produce what she had 
written. Its title was 

THE SLAVE SHIP. 

Freighted with curses was the bark that bore 
The spoilers of the west to Guinea's shore ; 
Heavy with groans of anguish blew the gales 
That swell'd that fatal bark's returning sails ; 
Old Ocean shrunk, as o'er his surface flew 
The felon-cargo, and the daemon crew ; 
For fiends, usurping human form, began 
The man-degrading merchandize of man. 

" It surely is a false and squeamish sensibility, 
that shrinks from the contemplation of the real 



200 THE SLAVE SHIP. 

horrors connected with the history and state of 
slavery, especially of Negro slavery in the West 
Indies, and in some provinces of the American 
continent. Those horrors, it is granted, may have 
experienced some abatement since the voice of 
public opinion, in this country, abolished the 
British slave-trade, and since the hand of Chris- 
tian benevolence has been stretched out to effect 
a melioration in the condition of the Million, 
on whom the traffickers in flesh and blood, or the 
circumstances of their birth upon the soil of thral- 
dom, have fastened the yoke and the chain of 
bondage. But time itself can never blot from the 
pages of history the record of Spanish cupidity 
and cruelty, beneath the oppressive influence of 
which the Carib aborigines of " the Hesperian 
Isles" passed away, 

Like autumn foliage, withering- in the blast ; 

nor can the lapse of ages obliterate the memorials 
of British lust of gold, which emulated the 
abominable policy of Spain, in filling up the 
thinned, and wasted, and buried population of the 
cane-planted islands with the Negro race of Africa. 
Praised be the heavenly hand, which first touched 
the hearts of some noble-minded men of our 
native land, to pity the woes of the children of 
Europe's darker sister, and to conceive plans for 



THE SLAVE SHIP. 201 

their relief ! Blessed be the memory of Pitt and of 
Fox, who, within a few months of their going 
down into their scarcely divided graves, aided the 
dauntless phalanx of British senators, in leading 
the great council of the nation to decree the Abo- 
lition of the Slave-trade ! Nor will the embalming: 
love and admiration of the Christian world ever 
suffer the name of Wilberforce to perish or to 
fade. 

" But we are not to forget, that, within our own 
memory, this brand on the commerce of the world 
existed in all its enormity ; and that, although the 
ships and the capital, and the subjects of England 
can no longer be legally employed to ' trade in 
the blood of innocence/ and yonder ocean is no 
longer shaded by the British flag, dishonoured by 
waving from a dungeon of slaves ; yet is the 
slave-trade actively carried on by other European 
nations, and still our own countrymen hold one 
Million of Negroes, by exactly the same tenure 
as they hold their lands and their cattle. What 
may be termed the internal and home slave-trade, 
yet stands, and blots the name of Britain, though 
she may have wiped her hands of the foreign 
traffic. Still, tens of thousands of the swarthy 
children of Ham, are annually carried off to the 
brutal market of the children of Japheth. It may 
not, therefore, be amiss to take a survey of those 
dire monsters of the deep, called Slave vessels. 
k2 



202 THE SLAVE SHIP. 

From Mersey's bay 
Or turbid Severn,^ mark the gallant ship. 
Gaily bedecked, a scene of seeming joy, 
Where many a heavy and repentant heart 
Sees the green shore recede, the mountains grey 
Sink from the straining sight, and nought all round 
But wave and sky. Ere long, sweet-scented airs, 
From Lusitania's groves, swell every sail 
With fragrance, every heart with vernal joy : 
Smiling, the aged helmsman turns to breathe 
The balmy gale ; while from the topmast height 
The ship-boy spies the blossom-gilded shore 
And thinks how happy is the land-boy's life, 
Who, fearless, climbs among the loaded boughs. 
These shores glide fast away, and Atlas frowns 
Far o'er the deep : the fire-peaked Tenerifife 
Amid the gloom of night is first descried : 
With day, the islands falsely happy called 
Pass in review, and tropic waves succeed. 
Sagacious of the taint that still adheres 
Indelible to decks long drenched with gore, 
Death-omening birds supply a convoy dire ; 
Or forward flocking, ere the ship appear. 
Wheel clamorous, and perch upon the beach, 
Sure harbingers of wretchedness to him 
Who daily with the sun, to scan the deep, 
Yon mountain climbs, leading with boding breast 
His playful boy. And now the sail appears 
Hung in the dim horizon : freedom's flag, 
Britannia's glowing ensign, is descried : 



25 Happily, these wateis are now cleansed of their foulest stain, 
though the waters of other lands retain the dye of guilt. 






THE SLAVE SHIP. 203 

Then full in view the floating prison-house, 

The Pandorean ark of every curse 

Imagination can combine to blast 

Poor human life, comes rolling o'er the surge. 

The mother strains her infant to her breast, 

And weeps to think her eldest born has reach'd 

Those years, which, tender though they be, provoke 

The white man's thirst of gain : more dreadful far 

The white man's scowl, than the couch'd lion's glare ! 

No shadow followed Maliel's playful steps, 

As from the field, where he had watch'd to scare 

The plund'ring birds, he sought the neighb'ring wood 

To drink the water from the chaliced herb ; — 

vSudden, a hurrying step behind he hears : 

It is the white man's tread. Trembling, he flies, 

To reach the friendly grove ; when, deep, a roar, 

The thunder of the new-wak'd lion's mouth, 

Comes full upon his ear : the oppressor's hand 

With fetters loaded, or the lion's paw, — 

Such is the dire alternative he views ; — 

Forward he flies, and darts into the wood. 

GllAHAME. 

" The modes, in which cargoes of poor slaves 
are procured, to gorge these leviathans of the 
ocean, are such as humanity shudders to contem- 
plate. Not many years have passed since the 
following narrative was told at a respectable table 

in the city of B , * I was once/ said the 

narrator, ' on the African coast, looking out for a 
cargo. 1 observed the smoke of a fire on shore, the 
known signal of trade, and immediately put off in 



204 THE SLAVE SHIP. 

a boat. On arriving at the beach I found a trader, 
and on my inquiring what he had to dispose of, 
he produced two negro women, each with an in- 
fant in her arms. I shook my head and declined 
purchasing. He asked me my reason. I replied, 
that they did not suit me. Again he begged to 
know the cause of my holding off. I told him 
that the women would suit me well enough, but 
their children were an objection to my purchasing 
them. The trader immediately went up to one of 
the women, and, taking the child out of her arms, 
dashed its head upon a stone. He then did the 
same with the other, and sold the two women to 
me/ This fact was told as one of the occurrences 
of trade, and without any expression of horror or 
detestation, as it regarded the fact itself, or of 
self-reproach, for not having interposed to prevent 
the hideous infanticide. With what force does a 
single atrocity like this, strike upon the mind 
which is not seared, either by the habitual sight 
of a land of bondage, or by the cold-hearted argu- 
ments by which slavery is upheld. But let such 
a mind spread its contemplation over a whole con- 
tinent, peopled with fifty millions of our race, for 
centuries made the theatre of equal, and greater, 
and innumerable atrocities, embracing all the ca- 
pabilities of human depravity and human strength 
to contrive and achieve, and it becomes sensible 
of a depression, which defies the power of utterance. 



THE SLAVE SHIP. 205 

'1 For the sake p of plunder, or bribed by the 
prospect of acquiring the useful, or luxurious pro- 
ductions of European manufactories; incited by 
the love of power, and that thirst of blood which 
seems to form a natural appetite of the savage 
chieftain ; and assured of finding European pur- 
chasers for their victims, the innumerable tribes 
of Africa are committed to the pursuit of a san- 
guinary, and relentless, and interminable warfare. 
The captives made in these wars, are subjected to 
a series of miseries in travelling from one scene to 
another, before they reach the sea-coast, which it 
raises our astonishment to find that human nature 
can endure. ' The ground around the well of 
Meshroo/ says Dr.Oudney,in a note toDenham's, 
Clapperton's, and Oudney's Travels in Africa, 
' is strewed with human skeletons, the slaves who 
have arrived exhausted with thirst and fatigue. 
The horrid consequences of the slave trade were 
strongly brought to our mind ; and, although its 
horrors (i. e. among Moors and Tibboos) are not 
equal to those of the European trade, still they are 
sufficient to call up every sympathy, and rouse up 
every spark of humanity. They are dragged over 
deserts ; water often fails; and provisions scarcely 
provided for the long and dreary journey. — Every 
few miles a skeleton was seen through the whole 
day ; some were partially covered with sand, 
others with only a small mound, formed by the 



206 THE SLAVE SHIP. 

wind/ * About sunset/ says Major Denham, 
' we halted near a well, within a half mile of 
Meshroo. Round this spot were lying more than 
one hundred skeletons, some of them with the 
skin still remaining attached to them^-not even a 
little sand thrown over them. The Arabs laughed 
heartily at my expression of horror, and said, * They 
were only blacks ! ' The greater part of the unhappy 
people, of whom these were the remains, had been 
the spoils of the Sultan of Fezzar, the year before. 
( 1821 .) I was assured that they had left Bournou 
with not above a quarter's allowance for each ; 
and that more died from want than fatigue : they 
were marched off with chains round their necks 
and legs : the most robust only arrived in Fezzar, 
in a very debilitated state, and were there fattened 
for the Tripoli slave market.' 

" ' They were only blacks ! ' It was the brutal 
exclamation of a Mahomed an Arab. ' They are 
only blacks !' This has been the plausible reason, 
which has satisfied Christian Europeans, and 
lulled their consciences to sleep, while they have 
kindled the flames of war, and dragged the ironed 
negro from realm to realm. e The Slatees,' ob- 
serves the traveller Parke, " are forced to keep 
them constantly in irons, and watch them very 
closely, to prevent their escape. They are com- 
monly secured by putting the right leg of one, and 
the left of the other, into the same pair of fetters. 



THE SLAVE SHIP. 207 

By supporting the fetters with a string, they can 
walk, though very slowly. Every four slaves are 
likewise fastened together by the necks, with a 
strong rope of twisted thongs ; and in the night, 
an additional pair of fetters is put on their hands, 
and sometimes a light iron chain passed round 
their necks/ In this manner, tens of thousands 
are annually driven beneath the scourge, making 
the desert echo with their cries and groans, and 
marking their track with blood from their galled 
limbs, down to the shores of their native continent, 
where the white man — the vulture of the coast — 
waits for his prey. 

f* And now the bargain is struck. The boats 
convey the fettered victims to ' the floating mart/ 
which human ingenuity, aided and prompted 
surely by demoniacal agency, has constructed for 
the purpose. The powers of calculation and 
measurement are taxed to provide the fullest cargo 
for the slave vessel ; and if but two-thirds survive 
the voyage across the Atlantic, the merchant in 
human flesh is amply paid. 



Heave, heave the anchor, on your handspikes rise 
Yo yea, resounds amidst the buzz confused, 
Ascending from the hold with groans and shrieks 
That cannot be repress'd ; and now full sail 
To catch the breeze, that scarce the canvass fills, 
The floating hearse nods onward o'er the waves. 



208 THE SLAVE SHIP. 

But even yet the victims have not reach'd 
The utmost pitch of misery, for the gale 
With gentle sigh the canvass scarcely fills, 
And all the hatches are full open thrown, 
Giving free entrance to the breath of life : 
Yet, in the imperfect truce of corporal sufferance, 
'Tis then that agony most keenly gnaws, 
The tortured soul. 

Night comes apace, but darkness is forbid 
The view of misery from itself to shroud. 
A glimm'ring lamp's dim beam faintly displays 
The rows of living corpses to the sight, 
As if the white men grudg'd that ev'n one sense 
Should cease to be the instrument of woe. 
But misery exquisite the vital powers 
Exhausts, till sleep, unhop'd, weighs down at last 
The weary eyelids of a favour'd few. — 

But mental anguish is ere long absorb'd 
In hideous pangs that rack, excruciate, 
The frame corporeal ; for now the waves 
Begin to heave and strew their distant crests ; 
The gathering clouds in meeting currents roll, 
Contracting heaven's expanded canopy 
Into a lurid vault. The sails are reef'd ; 
All hatches clos'd; the coffin'd 26 captives pant 
For air ; and in their various languages 
Implore, unheard, that but a single board 
Be rais'd : vain prayer ! for now the beetling surge 
Breaks o'er the bow, and boils along the deck. 
Oh then the horrors of the den below ! 



26 The slaves, indeed, are described as not having so much room 
as a man in his coffin. 



THE SLAVE SHIP. 209 

Disease bursts forth, and, like th' electric shock, 

Sudden, strikes through at once the prostrate ranks. 

Fierce fever pours his lava from the heart, 

And burns through every vein ; convulsion writhe* 

Foaming, and gnaws and champs his twisted arm ; 

Dire trismus bends his victim on the wheel 

Of torment, rivets close the firm-screwed jaw 

In fearful grin, and makes death lovely seem. 

Dreadful the imprecations, dire the shrieks, 

That mingle with the maniac laugh ; the gnash 

Of teeth, delirium's fitful song, now gay, 

Plaintive at times, then deeply sorrowful. 

In such a scene death deals the final blow 

In pity, not in wrath : 'tis he alone 

That here can quench the fever's fire, -unloose 

The knotted tendon ; he alone restores 

The frantic mind, that, soon as freed, ascends 

To Him who gave it being. 

One endless day, one night that seemed a year, 
The billows rag'd ; so long the slaves, immur'd, 
Struggled 'twixt life and death. At last the winds 
Abate ; subside the waves ; the fastened boards 
Unfold, and full o'erhead the hopeless eye 
Sees, from his wooden couch, once more the sun, 
Dim through the cloud that to the topmast streams* 

The dead are dragg'd above, and to the dead 
Enchained ofttimes is dragg'd a living man. 
The female captives next, freed from their cage, 
Breathe the pure air, leading their little ones. 
Oh what a sight I The miserable man, 
Who sees his child among the wailing crowd, 
Above its little head his shackled arms 
Circling, enfolds it to his anguish'd breast* 



210 THE SLAVE SHIP. 

Then comes the sad repast, and loathing lips 
Are forc'd to share it. Some, on death resolv'd, 
All sustenance refuse ; then creaks the screw 
Of torture ; then the knotted scourge resounds, 
Soaking itself in blood : with aspect firm, 
With such a look as triumph'd on the face 
Of Scsevola, fixed on his shrivelling hand, 
The African his dreadful fate sustains, 
And clings to his resolve : nature at last 
Sinks under agony, and death's mild arm 
The brandish' d lash arrests. Another yields, 
Not to the furrowing scourge, or torture iron, 
In vain applied, but to a kneeling wife, 
And infants kneeling suppliant by her side. 

Contagion spreads apace from man to man ; 
Nor the poor comforts of their piteous state 
Are granted to the sick ; no place have they 
Whereon to lay them down and die in peace. 
The seaman's swinging couch has given place 
To human stowage ; on the deck's bare board, 
Or haply on a chest, he lies outstretch'd ; 
And, for the soothing voice and tender hand, 
He hears reproach, and feels the brutal blow. 
Suspicion is conviction, and the man, 
Who scarce can raise his throbbing head, is doom'd, 
(As if he feign'd disease) panting and pale, 
To feel the harrowing stripes : he breathes his last ! 

Dearth next approaches, handmaid of disease, 
With slow but certain step : the measur'd draught 
Of water is dealt out with cautious hand ; 
For now the sails hang wavering in the breeze ; 
The lambent waves rise gently on the prow; 
His bulk the following sluth-hound of the deep 



THE SLAVE SHIP. 211 

Rolls, gambolling, and shows his vault-like gorge ; 
And every sign foretels a lasting calm. 

Fainting the breeze dies gradually away, 
'Till not a breath is felt; the vessel lies 
Moveless, as if enchased in Arctic ice. 
While fierce, with perpendicular rays, the sun 
Withers up life, and from within thirst burns 
Unquench'd : O then, amid the earnest prayer 
For death, the tongue, parch'd, to the mouth's roof 

cleaves : 
Right busily death runs his welcome rounds, 
The aged man now striking, now the youth, 
And now the infant in its mother's arms. 
There was (almost incredible the tale !) 
A wretch, whose lips condemn'd a mother's hands 
To drop her murder'd infant in the deep. 
Murder'd ! yes foully murder'd, is each one 
Who dies a captive in the horrid trade. 
And yet there have been men, and still there are, 
Who vindicate such murder ; men who preach 
That gain and custom sanction every crime. 

Slight mitigation of the seaman's lot 
The shades of evening bring : but who in words 
The aggravated misery can unfold 
Of the poor slaves, who, thrust below, endure 
The double deprivation, water, air ! — 
With horror at the picture fancy draws, 
Language, appalled, shrinks faltering from the task. 

O God ! how large a portion of the ills 
Of human kind derives itself from man ! 
Deeming the land too narrow for his crimes, 
He penetrates the deserts of the main. 
How sad the contrast 'twixt that floating scene, 



212 THE SLAVE SHIP* 

That little world of misery condens'd, 
By man created, and the view around 
Of nature's works ! how peaceful ocean lies 
Unseen, reflecting- all the heavenly host, 
While to the rolling eye, above, below, 
Wide sparkles, not a single hemisphere, 
But one vast concave globe of radiant orbs. 

Seven days and nights the deep a mirror lay 
To sun, and moon, and stars ; and ere the wind 
Began again to whisper through the shrouds, 
The living scarce were equal to the work 
Of burying the dead : the dying hear 
The frequent plunge, and clasp their hands in prayer 
That their appointed hour may be the next ; 
Contending sharks, full many a fathom down, 
Are seen in act of tearing limb from limb, 
The sinking corpse, that finds a living grave. 

Land ! land ! The sea-boy, from the topmast 
height, 
Proclaims, in feeble voice, scarce audible : 
Land, land, (most blessed sound to sailors' ears !) 
Flies on the wings of joy from man to man. 
Alas ! 'tis only to the free, a sound 
Of joy; invigorated by that sound, 
They mount the shrouds, and gaze untill the eye 
Aches at the gladsome sight ; the dying man 
Raises his languid head, sinks down again, 
Nor feels the general joy ; for well he knows 
That, should he reach the shore, 'twill be his grave 

The crowded haven opens to the view, 
And soon within the pier the vessel lies. 
The remnants of the cargo are borne forth, 
And warehous'd, 'till, with food and drugs vamp'd up, 



THE SLAVE SHIP. 213 

They 're fitted for the market; then, led out, 
They prove the misery of a second sale. 

Grahame. 

*' An apology seems necessary for the length of 
this quotation. Its suitability to the object in 
view, and the very plan of these literary recrea- 
tions, must constitute that apology. But it may 
be said, that, on a subject like this, historical 
facts are of far more value than poetical quota- 
tions, which are apt to lay too deep a colouring on 
the scenes which they represent. The general 
truth of this remark cannot be questioned. But 
here, poetry has only been the amanuensis of his- 
tory, and her most highly wrought descriptions, 
so far from exaggerating, have fallen very short of 
the reality. It is utterly impossible for pen or 
pencil to overstate the atrocities, which must ine- 
vitably follow in the train of those, whom the 
Holy Scriptures have branded with the name of 
men-stealers — a deeper brand, than any with 
which the ruthless hand of the overseer ever cau- 
terized the flesh of the wretched captive. The 
brand that marks the slave is erased by the more 
tender hand of his last enemy, death. But the 
brand set upon his oppressor, like the mark set 
upon the first murderer, is indelible. History ex- 
hibits it to the eyes of all generations, and the 
day of final and impartial judgment, when God 



214 THE SLAVE SHIP. 

maketh inquisition for blood, shall display it to 
the view of an assembled universe. 

" Facts are not wanting to fill up the most 
ample outline. Let a few suffice. To record the 
whole would be to count the waves that roll 
between the shores of the oppressed and the 
oppressor. 

" The Portugese, the Brazilian, the Spanish, 
and the French slave ship still navigates the 
Atlantic. Mr. Canning officially declares, in 
writing to our ambassador at Paris ; ' Scarcely an 
arrival takes place from Africa, without bringing 
with it accounts that slave-trade undertakings, 
covered by the flags, and carried on by the subjects 
of France, are in activity, from north to south, 
and from east to west, throughout the whole coast 
of that vast peninsula ; and in the African islands, 
the West Indies, and elsewhere, French subjects 
are continually heard of, as fitting out vessels for 
the slave-trade. In the very ports of France 
herself, these undertakings form the entire and 
almost public concern of companies of her mer- 
chants. One of these ports, that of INTantz, seems 
to be entirely devoted to it.' 

" The Orphee, of Nantz, was boarded by one of 
our cruisers, in the year 1825. She had 698 slaves 
on board. Commodore Buller writes : ' The state 
in which my lieutenant found the miserable objects 
of this brutal trafic, is truly revolting to the feel- 



THE SLAVE SHIP. 215 

ings of human nature : the whole of the men 
(550 in number) were heavily chained in couples, 
some round the ancles and arms, and many by 
the necks. The confined and putrid air issuing 
from the slave-deck, a height of scarcely three feet, 
was so strong as almost to deter my lieutenant 
from exploring it.' ' In September, 1825, there 
were in the Bruny alone, 2007 tons of shipping, 
293 persons, and 35 guns, under the flag of the 
French nation, employed in the speculation of 
human flesh. Lieutenant Griffin and other officers, 
were shown by them round their slave-decks, 
whilst they exulted in their savage trade, and in 
the knowledge that we could not interfere with 
them/ The Paris petition states, ' that it is esta- 
blished by authentic documents, that the slave- 
trade captains throw into the sea every year, about 
three thousand negroes, men, women, and chil- 
dren ; of whom more than half are thus sacrificed 
whilst yet alive, either to escape from the visits of 
cruisers, or because, worn down by their sufferings, 
they could not be sold to an advantage.' The 
Baron de Stael, who has recently visited Nantz, 
with a view to obtain accurate information on the 
subject, has published the most appalling state- 
ments. He tells his countrymen, whom he is 
laudably rousing to a consideration of the horrid 
traffic, that ' the unblushing audacity with which 
the slave-trade is carried on in Nantz, exceeds 



216 THE SLAVE SHIP. 

every thing that he could have imagined from 
what he had heard or read on the subject. — ' The 
number of vessels/ says the Baron, ' employed by 
them, according to the most moderate calculation, 
exceeds eighty, of the average tonnage of 130. — 
In one vessel, about to be launched, the platform, 
two and a half feet from the deck, (i. e. underneath 
the deck) was already fitted up for the reception 
of slaves. — I begged of my companion to get some 
iron shackles for me. He said that nothing could 
be more easy, and walked into the first black- 
smith's shop on the quay, who showed him a loft, 
where shackles, handcuffs, and thumb-screws, 
were heaped by hundreds.' 27 

" Our whole nation, two years since, felt as 
though a pestilence had touched our island, when 
the Perle, a French slave ship, entered the port of 
St. Ives, in Conwall ; nor was the joy less general, 
when the hands of the African Institution libe- 
rated the five Africans, whom the Perle had on 
board. 

We have no slaves at home : then why abroad ? 
And they themselves, once ferried o'er the "wave 
That parts us, are emancipate and loos'd. 
Slaves cannot breathe in England ; if their lungs 
Receive our air, that moment they are free ; 
They touch our country, and their shackles fall. 

37 See the gOtivReport of the African Institution. 



THE SLAVE SHIP. 217 

That's noble, and bespeaks a nation proud 
And jealous of the blessing. Spread it then, 
And let it circulate through ev'ry vein 
Of all your empire ; that, where Britain's pow'r 
Is felt, mankind may feel her mercy too. 

" Yes, it is a matter for mutual and joyful con- 
gratulation, and, above all, of thankfulness to 
Him who 'fashioneth the hearts' of the children 
of men, and moulds them to his will, that no 
slave vessel ever darkens the waves that roll 
around our island, and no shackled foot ever 
touches our shores, but to lose its fetters. But 
slavery is still found in the skirts of our empire, 
and the crystalized juice that sweetens our cup is 
its unblest fruit. The nations of Europe, when 
we attempt to urge on them the claims of hu- 
manity, and the abolition of the trade, point with 
a sarcastic smile to our islands in the West, and 
are disposed to question both our sincerity and 
consistency. ' Behold those unoffending foreigners, 
carried by force to your cane-planted islands. 
Behold those tens and hundreds of thousands of 
your own subjects, deprived of the rights which 
the British Constitution assigns to all who are 
'born within your king's dominions. Have you 
forgotten that your fleet, a few years since, laid 
the port of Algiers in ashes, because the Algerines 
had violated that very law of nations, on which 
you yourselves have unblushingly trampled ? Look 



218 THE SLAVE SHIP. 

at home, to the glaring fact, that unoffending 
aliens, and unoffending British subjects are de- 
prived of their civil existence, by thousands and 
hundreds of thousands, solely for the emolument 
of private individuals, who, for that purpose alone, 
by a monstrous and illegal usurpation, condemn 
their fellow-subjects to a state of irremediable 
slavery, and extend the dreadful curse to their 
children, and their children's children. Does the 
claim set up by your proprietors of slaves, to their 
fellow-subjects, and to helpless strangers, as their 
property, rest on any better basis than the claim 
of robbers and receivers, to goods which they have 
stolen, or purchased knowing them to be stolen ? 
Does not the crime of depriving an innocent man, 
whether a foreigner or a British subject, of his 
civil existence, immeasurably exceed any one of 
those descriptions of theft, for which the punish- 
ment of death is usually awarded in this country, 
as it includes them all? 28 Is it not one continued 
system of daily and hourly robbery, wresting from 
the miserable victim his natural liberty, his rights 
as a man, as a husband, as a father ; his rights 
as a British subject, by the constitution of this 
country, or as- an innocent foreigner by the law of 
nations I . Is the crime any thing less than that 



23 He that stealeth a man, and selleth Mm, or if he be found in 
his hand, he shall surely be put to death. Exod. xxi. 16. 



THE SLAVE SHIP. 219 

of robbing a human being of all his mental and 
moral energies, of keeping his mind in darkness, 
lest he should become acquainted with his rights, 
and of reducing him, for all civil purposes, to the 
condition of a murdered man ? Is the West 
Indian negro allowed any inheritance but slavery, 
though born with an equal claim to liberty with 
yourselves ? If he attempts to assert his just 
immunities — if he endeavours to regain his liberty 
by the same means that were taken to deprive 
him of it, is he not consigned to the gallows or 
the stake, as a traitor, on the principles by which 
pirates put to death those who do not quietly 
submit to their injustice ? '" 9 

The proprietors of West India estates claim, 
indeed, our consideration, and, in a measure, our 
pity. Many have come into possession of their 
estates by inheritance, or by circumstances over 
which they could have little or no control. Not 
a few of them are men of high moral probity; and 
great injustice may be done to their character by 
indiscriminately classing them with those, whose 
crimes have held them up to the execration of 
mankind — the savages who are more savage than 
the slaves they scourge — the ' Christian brokers 
in the trade of blood '—the haughty tyrants, before 



39 See the Surrey Anti-Slavery Petition, in the Christian Observer, 
for 1826. p. 820. 



220 THE SLAVE SHIP. 

whom, wherever they walk, ' the negro trembles, 
and the lash resounds.' But on what principles 
can the employment of capital, in property whose 
chief worth is conceived to depend upon, or con- 
sist in slaves, be justified, that will not equally 
establish the propriety of the slave-trade itself? 
And talk we of injustice done to the fair fame of 
a few individuals ? What is this, to the injustice 
which has usurped the name of law, and the right 
of prescription, and has heaped wrongs upon 
Africa, that reach a higher elevation in the scale 
of moral guilt, than her mountains in the scale of 
the geometrician? Some minds seem to labour 
under a morbid sensibility to the claims of a few 
hundreds of European slave-holders, while the 
claims of a million of slaves are viewed with in- 
difference. But let us hope that Britain is girding 
herself to her own emancipation, from the oppro- 
brium and the curse of being the mistress of slaves ; 
that she will at length give her heart, as well as 
her ear, to the cry of one part of her great family 
on behalf of another ; and that the lip of the negro 
will soon call her blessed, as the restorer of his 
civil liberty, and as the happy instrument ox* 
introducing him into the glorious liberty of the 
children of God. 

1 Thy chains are broken, Africa, be free ! ' 
Thws saith the island-empress of the sea ; 



THE SLAVE SHIP. 221 

Thus saith Britannia. — O ye winds and waves ! 
Waft the glad tidings to the land of slaves." 

Mr. Willoughby observed, that he warmly ap- 
proved and admired the ardent, steady, and Chris- 
tian zeal, with which many ladies, in the present 
day, have taken up the cause of the enslaved negro, 
and that numbers of his country-women were 
above the sickly and selfish sensibility, which 
seeks the praise of delicacy and tenderness, in 
starting and shrinking from the view of facts, like 
those which make up the history of West Indian 
slavery. 

" To use the words of an author, whose name 
I know not," observed Charles, " 'True hu- 
manity consists not in a squeamish ear. It 
consists not in starting and shrinking at tales such 
as these, but in a disposition to relieve misery. 
True humanity appertains rather to the mind than 
to the nerves, and prompts men to use real and 
active endeavours to execute the actions which it 
suggests.' If I should not be called to order, I 
should feel disposed to thank Miss Hamilton for 
the courage and feeling with which she has 
handled this delicate subject." 

" Our incomparable Litany," said Mrs. Ha- 
milton, " which embraces in the ample arms of 
its intercessory supplications the whole family of 
man, always awakens in my heart a touching 



222 THE SLAVE SHIP. 

recollection of our West Indian slaves, when we 
beseech our good Lord to hear us, and ' to show 
pity upon all prisoners and captives/ It might 
not be amiss to have this petition printed in red 
capitals in all the copies of the Book of Common 
Prayer, used in the slave-cultured islands. I 
called them our slaves, for in one sense we all 
help to fasten and to increase the weight of their 
yoke, by using the produce of their toil. To evince 
our own, and to promote our children's abhorrence 
of the principles and existence of slavery, Mr. 
Hamilton and myself have abolished the use of 
West India sugar in our family. But we are very 
far from pressing upon others an adoption of the 
same plan. We fear the probability of our im- 
posing a yoke upon the conscience, by urging the 
practice as obligatory upon others, who may en- 
tertain the same degree of hostility to slavery as 
ourselves, but who may not view the means bear- 
ing upon its abolition in the same light. As a 
moral question, for such it really is, I regard it as 
St. Paul regarded the difference of opinion in the 
Corinthian church, on abstinence from meats 
offered to idols. * Meat commendeth us not to 
God : for neither if we eat, are we the better ; 
neither if we eat not, are we the worse/ " 

" I am truly gratified," answered Mr. Wil- 
loughby, " with this liberal concession on your 
part, my dear friends. We have not felt the 



THE SLAVE SHIP. 223 

obligation, under which you have voluntarily and 
conscientiously laid yourselves. Yet, I can assure 
you, that we yield to none in a deep-rooted an- 
tipathy to the system of slavery. I remember, 
that Mr. Pitt, in his speech on the slave trade, in 
the House of Commons, in the year 1792, ener- 
getically asked, * Why ought the slave trade 
to be abolished? Because it is incurable 
injustice. How much stronger, then, is the ar- 
gument for immediate, than gradual abolition ! — 
Why is injustice to be suffered to remain for a 
single hour ? ' I see not why a part, at least, of 
this reasoning is not applicable to the state of 
slavery. This is incurable injustice. But cir- 
cumstances may arise, wherein to give immediate 
abolition to a long existing evil, would be to 
involve those who suffer from it, in deeper calamity. 
This, in my opinion, would be the inevitable con- 
sequence of the immediate abolition of slavery in 
our colonies. To adopt, however, a system of 
civil regulations, which shall ultimately issue in 
the emancipation of every subject of the British 
crown, and which shall demonstrate to the world 
our sincere conviction of the evil of our past 
national conduct, is what the united voice of jus- 
tice, humanity, and religion claim at our hands. 

" It is pleasing to recollect, that, on this grand 
moral question, in its primary and original form, 
as it bore upon the trade in ' what is woman- 



224 THE SLAVE SHIP. 

born,' Mr. Fox was of one mind with his great 
political antagonist. In the debates of 1805, Mr. 
Fox thus delivered his sentiments on the trade in 
slaves, and, were he now living, I have no doubt 
that he would express himself in a similar manner, 
respecting slavery in the abstract. ' The cause of 
abolition, being a cause of justice, is one in which 
I cannot admit of any compromise : for there can 
be no compromise between justice and injustice? 
' Upon the whole, I shall give my opinion of this 
trafic in a very few words. I believe it to be 
impolitic. I know it to be inhuman. I am certain 
it is unjust.' " 

" I cannot but hope/' continued Mr. Wil- 
loughby, " that the advocates for the gradual, 
but immediately progressive abolition of slavery, 
will take up the resolution formed by the great 
statesman, whose words I have just quoted. 
'We never will give up the point. Whether 
in this house, or out of this house ; in whatsoever 
situation I may ever be ; as long as I have a voice 
to speak, this question shall never have an 
end.' We, who think that these things are not 
merely impolitic, but inhuman and unjust, that they 
are not of the nature of trade, but that they are 
crimes, which stain the honour of the country : we, 

SIR, WILL NEVER RELAX OUR EFFORTS." 

" I entirely agree with you," observed Mr. 
Hamilton, " and in common with some, I wish I 



THE SLAVE SHIP. 225 

could say many of my clerical brethren, have, of 
late, not infrequently touched upon it in my public 
addresses from the pulpit. In doing this, how- 
ever, I have been careful to avoid giving a 
political complexion to a question, which I think 
is pre-eminently, though not exclusively a moral 
question. But by way of enlivening our present 
discussion of the subject, let me ask if the juniors 
of our party, cannot, memoriter, contribute to our 
entertainment and instruction, by the recital of 
some pieces in character, both with our topic, 
and with the scenery by which we are now 
environed." 

Edwin Willoughby volunteered to repeat 
Cowper's 

MORNING DREAM. 

'T was in the glad season of spring-, 

Asleep, at the dawn of the day, 
I dream'd, what I cannot but sing, 

So pleasant it seem'd, as I lay. 
I dream'd, that, on ocean afloat, 

Far hence to the westward I sail'd, 
While the billows high lifted the boat, 

And the fresh-blowing breeze never fail'd. 

In the steerage a woman I saw, 

Such, at least, was the form that she wore, 

Whose beauty impress'd me with awe, 
Ne'er taught me by woman before. 
l2 



226 THE SLAVE SHIP. 

She sat, and a shield at her side 
Shed light, like a sun, on the waves, 

And smiling divinely, she cried - 

" I o-o to make freemen of slaves." — 



Then, raising her voice to a strain 

The sweetest that ear ever heard, 
She sung of the slave's broken chain, 

Wherever her glory appear'd. 
Some clouds, which had over us hung, 

Fled, chas'd by her melody clear, 
And methought, while she liberty sung, 

'Twas liberty only to hear. 



Thus swiftly dividing the flood, 

To a slave-cultur'd island we came, 
Where a daemon, her enemy, stood— 

Oppression his terrible name. 
In his hand, as the sign of his sway, 

A scourge, hung with lashes, he bore, 
And stood looking out for his prey 

From Africa's sorrowful shore. 



But soon as, approaching the land, 

That goddess-like woman he view'd, 
The scourge he let fall from his hand, 

With blood of his subjects imbrued. 
I saw him both sicken and die, 

And the moment the monster expir'd, 
Heard shouts, that ascended the sky, 

From thousands with rapture inspir'd. 



THE SLAVE SHIP. 227 

Awaking, how could I but muse, 

At what such a dream should betide ? 
But soon my ear caught the glad news, 

Which serv'd my weak thought for a guide. 
That Britannia, renown'd o'er the waves, 

For the hatred she ever has shown 
To the black-scept'red rulers of slaves, 

Resolves to have none of her own. 

" Montgomery, in his ' West Indies,' has an 
appropriate passage," said Theophilus Hamilton, 
" the bare repetition of which fills one's mind with 
trembling awe. It is this : 

When the loud trumpet of eternal doom 
Shall break the mortal bondage of the tomb ; 
When, with the mother's pangs, th' expiring earth 
Shall bring her children forth to second birth ; 
Then shall the sea's mysterious caverns, spread 
With human relics, render up their dead : 
Though warm with life the heaving surges glow, 
Where'er the winds of heav'n were wont to blow, 
In seven-fold phalanx shall the rallying hosts 
Of ocean-slumb'rers join their wand'ring ghosts, 
Along the melancholy gulph, that roars 
From Guinea to the Charibbean shores. 
Myriads of slaves, that perish'd on the way, 
From age to age the shark's appointed prey, 
By livid plagues, by ling'ring tortures slain. 
Or headlong plung'd alive into the main, 
Shall rise in judgment from their gloomy beds, 
And call down vengeance on their murd'rers' heads." 



228 THE SLAVE SHIP. 

" I have frequently admired/' added Miss 
Willoughby, " two short poems, on the Abolition 
of the Slave Trade, which appeared in the 
Christian Observer, for May, 1808. With per- 
mission, I will repeat three stanzas of the latter 
of these poems. 

See, Britons, see ! o'er Afric's sands 

The day-star, bright, ascending ; 
With peace, and light, and life, and joy, 

His heav'nly march attending. 
The clouds and storms roll dark away, 
That quench'd too long her struggling day ; 

The shades of death are fled : 
Proud wave Dahomey's giant woods, 
And Niger, father of the floods, 

Heaves on his rocky bed. 

No more her sons, shall force or fraud 

From their lov'd shores dissever ; 
Through raging seas borne far away, 

For ever and for ever. 
Alas ! sad child of want and pain, 
For him the morn must wake in vain, 

The dewy eve descend ; 
Dull eve, that bids the weary mind 
Return to all she left behind, 

The sister, father, friend. 

Woe to the land, whose wealth proclaims 
- Another land's undoing ; 
Whose trophied column rises high 
On robbery and ruin. 






THE SLAVE SHIP. 229 

Britannia saw, with deep disdain, 
The foul reproach, the coward stain, 

The characters of blood ; 
She saw, and swept her shame away, 
While shouting round, in thick array, 

Her patriot champions stood." 

The little vessel was now nearing the shore, and 
it was agreed that Julia Hamilton should reserve 
her production till the two families met again, as 
proposed, on Friday evening. 




CHAPTER XVIII 



THE MISSIONARY VOYAGE. 



" My sister Julia/' said Pascal Hamilton, " is 
in our debt, and I, for one, as a rigid creditor, 
look for prompt payment." 

" It is very modest of you," playfully answered 
Julia, " to require such precise punctuality in a 
case where I stand pledged to pay a portion 
of your debts. I have since repented, as most 
sureties and substitutes do, of my engagement : 
and I fear, that our pleasant circle will wish that 
I had left the whole range of navigation to other 
and abler hands. The theme which I have chosen 
for a poem, if it may arrogate the name, is 

THE MISSIONARY VOYAGE. 

Ho ! to the land of the o'ershading wings ; 5# 
My country ! Thee, the Hebrew minstrel sings. 
His deep-ton'd harp its thrilling numbers pours 
In deathless oracles around thy shores. 

80 See Bishop Horsley's version and interpetation of Isaiah xriii. 



THE MISSIONARY VOYAGE. 231 

Thine are the countless sails that shade the deep ; — 

Thine are the standards its blue plains that sweep. 

Ho ! all ye dwellers on the earth, behold ! 

The red-cross banner waves its silken fold 

On Britain's tow'ring hills. Ye nations, hear ! 

The trump proclaims the Second Advent near. 

Nor is the strain by Britain's ear unheard : 

Through all her cities rings the prophet's word ; 

Her sons arise and gird them to the toil, 

To plant on polar ice, on tropic soil, 

The lion-standard of Judaea's King, 

The prostrate nations to his footstool bring, 

Wrest the fell sceptre from the demon's hand, 

And rend the cov'ring veil from ev'ry land. 

Lo, on the banks of Cam, with chaplets crown'd, 
The man of science eyes the prospect round : 
Turns from the cool of Academic groves, 
To where in darker shades the savage roves, 
Dark, hopeless wand'rer of life's cheerless wild, 
Stranger to heav'n, and earth's poor, outcast 

child :— 
Turns from the incense sweet of letter'd fame, 
To where the widow burns in cedar flame ; 
Where Ganges rolls his corse-encumber'd flood, 
And tinges ocean's wave with infant blood. 
The spirit of the martyrs fires his breast ; 
He girds him with salvation's flowing vest : 
To fame, and wealth, and ease, he bids adieu, 
Christ in his heart, and heaven in his view ; 
Grasps with firm hand the charter of the skies, 
And, like th' Apocalyptic angel, flies, 
The everlasting gospel to proclaim, 
And spread through ev'ry land Messiah's name. 



232 THE MISSIONARY VOYAGE. 

I saw the manly tear, that silent stole 
Adown his cheek : it seem'd as if his soul 
Would mingle with the brine where fell that tear. 
'Twas but a moment's struggle, though severe ; 
And like that lonely drop in ocean lost, 
The momentary pang his soul that cross'd. 
He glanc'd his eye where Peter look'd, and rose 
Superior to the flood of fears and woes, 
That threaten'd to ingulf his sinking soul, 
And o'er his head their whelming billows roll. 

I saw him turn to view his native shore : — 
And now its vales and mountains are no more. 
But as the landscape melted in the sea, 
Faith caught a vision of eternity. 
Then earthly things, all, like that vanish'd scene, 
Appear'd, in view of heav'n, as though they ne'er had 
been. 

Alone ! no wedded spirit soothes the strife 
Of warring passions at the seat of life : 
Home, kindred, friends, and one than all more dear, 
Rush on his soul, and force the gushing tear. 
But love of Christ, and zeal for dying men, 
Soon still the tumult of his breast again. 
Would he return ? Ah ! no : the martyr's crown 
In balance weighs all other objects down. 
Alone ! that crowded bark no kindred mind 
Links with his own. His sighs are to the wind : 
Like a lone Seraph 'mid the faithless host, 
The scoffer's banter, and the drunkard's toast. 

Alone ! Ah ! no : while through the dashing seas 
The light-wing'd vessel scuds before the breeze, — 
That whistles shrilly through the rattling shrouds, 
And chases down the sky the fleecy clouds, — 



THE MISSIONARY VOYAGE. 233 

More than the Oceanides of yore, 

The fabled genii of old ocean's roar, 

Ten thousand times ten thousand angel forms 

Bear the ship onward through the waves and storms, 

And pour upon the pilgrim's wakeful ear 

The still, small voice, that calms his bosom's fear. 

Alone ! behold him in his seaman's cot, 

From friends dissever'd — by the world forgot ; 

I hear his converse with some viewless mind, 

Conceal'd the curtain of the flesh behind. 

There is a beam upon his raptur'd eye, 

Reflected from a source unseen, but nigh. 

Unutterable fellowship is his, 

The prelibation of eternal bliss. 

Ah ! not alone he traverses the wave : 

With One in Three, and Three in One, to 

save, 
The light of peace to shed upon his breast, 
And soothe the turmoil of his heart to rest. 

There was a night of terrors, when the skies 
Contended with the deep — that bark, the prize ! 
The heav'ns were flaming, and the seas were hoar 
With foaming rage : — the elemental roar 
Thund'ring in pealing claps from pole to pole, 
Appall'd the stoutest heart, and shook the soul. 
Yet was there one meek spirit felt no dread, 
The peace of heav'n was o'er his bosom spread. 
See, where he moves amidst the shudd'ring crowd ! 
Abas'd and coward now, the brave, the proud. 
" Flee from the wrath that's ever wrath to come ! 
" Embrace the cross t or wait a hopeless doom !" 

The storm is gone : and with it fear and pray'r. 
Revel and dance the morn and ev'ning share. 



234 THE MISSIONARY VOYAGE. 

Cabin'd in solitude, as still as sweet, 
He sees the sky and waters blandly meet : 
Like the false friendship of two smiling foes ; 
Who only watch to deal the deadlier blows. 
The moon-lit arch, reflected on the sea, 
Imag'd a fathomless eternity. 
Its broken fragments, undulating there, 
Too like the form our wav'ring spirits wear : 
Confus'd, at best, though imag'd from above 
The saint's resemblance to the God of love. 
He sigh'd for perfect rest, where, o'er the soul, 
No stormy wave, nor faithless swell should roll. 
A few more suns, and he should hail the day, 
Whose sun for ever holds meridian sway. 
He gaz'd upon the sea : oh ! peerless bliss ! 
Its great Creator — Ruler — God, was his. 
Then faith exulted in the written word, 
That, o'er the earth, the glory of the Lord, 
Wide, deep, abiding, soon or late shall spread, 
As ocean covers its unmeasur'd bed. 

Lo ! there he stands upon the Cape of Storms ! 31 
Where nature greets him in her grandest forms. 
He scans the earth, the ocean, and the sky : 
The world is pictur'd to his mental eye ; 
And while the mountain promontory rears 
Its barrier to the clouds, his ardent prayers 
Ascend the heav'n of heav'ns, and reach the seat, 
Where human cries and seraph anthems meet. 
" Name above ev'ry name, my Saviour, Lord ! 
" From realm to realm be known, believ'd, 
ador'd!" 

31 See Robertson's History of America, Book I. p, 49, 



THE MISSIONARY VOYAGE. 235 

' Cape of Good Hope/ that head-land's later style, 
The seaman's fearful bodings to beguile. 
'Twas there the dauntless Missionary stood, 
And as he ponder'd o'er the mighty flood, 
The gospel-banner long'd to view unfurl'd, 
Waving triumphant o'er a conquer'd world. 
And Hope— Good Hope, his glowing spirit fir'd, — 
A holy flame from heav'n itself inspir'd, 
That coming years from Table Mount should see, 
The messengers of peace o'erspread that rolling- 
sea. 

The fleet is under weigh ! On, Herald, on ! 
Through languor, pestilence, and death begone ! 
Through scorn and contumely, in faith and pray'r, 
Fearless thy enterprize of mercy dare. 
Ah ! live they still, the graceless souls that scorn'd 
That man of God, who wept, implor'd, and warn'd ? 
Ah ! live they now, who, when the voyage was past, 
Scoff'd, and contemn'd his counsel to the last ? 
Lord ! hear his pray'r, then register'd in heav'n ; 
And be their souls abas'd — their guilt forgiv'n ! 

Lo, Ceylon's Isle ! — its spicy hills and vales, 
Perpetual odours fling upon the gales. 

" Ah ! when ? But see, the future opens near : 

" Those fragrant groves ere long a name shall hear, 

" Than all their perfumes sweeter. This shall rise 

" In daily incense to the bending skies : — 

" Then Budhu's temples echo with the song, 

" ' Worthy the Lamb ! To him our strains belong.'" 

Lo, where, in gloomy pride, the tow'r of blood, 
Throws its tall shadow o'er the pearl-strewn flood ! 
Fell Juggernaut ! around thy gory pile, 
The fiends of darkness sit in sullen smile : 



236 THE MISSIONARY VOYAGE. 

There feast upon the hecatombs of slain 
Whose life-stream gushes 'neath thy pond'rous wain 
A transient cloud o'erspreads thy thoughtful breast, 
Servant of God, as by that coast unblest,— 
Where India lifts her shame into the skies, 
The Moloch of her million deities, 
Thy vessel ploughs its furrow through the main, 
And bears thee, pensive, 'cross the watry plain. 
How burns thy soul to pluck the idol down, 
To claim for Christ the sceptre and the crown, 
To rear the cross where yon Pagoda stands, 
And cry, " Salvation !" through its bone-bleach'd 
lands. 
" Through changing climates and tempestuous seas" 
He makes the haven of long look'd-for ease : 
From ocean's stormy breast most gladly glides 
To float in calm upon broad Gunga's tides. 
Lo, now he treads the fiery soil of Ind ! 
Proclaims how God has lov'd — how man has sinn'd ; 
Peals the dread thunders of the flaming law ; 
Inspires the motley crowd with trembling awe ; 
Exalts a Saviour to their streaming eyes, 
And beckons upward to the open'd skies. 

Meek, as the Prophet of the lifted rod ; 
Lowly, as learning of the Son of God ; 
Ardent, as Peter, for his master's name ; 
Constant, as John, his love a kindred flame ; 
In speech, Apollos; and in zeal, a Paul; 
He sped his way, where'er he heard the call 
Of dying millions, and the voice of heav'n : 
To each — to all, his heart — his life was giv'n. 

For earthly lamp by far too bright that flame, 
Which soar'd to reach the source from whence it came : 



THE MISSIONARY VOYAGE. 237 

And, while it burn'd with clear and clearer ray, 
Its earthen vessel slow consum'd away. 
But as the lamp, before its light expires, 
Beams brighter, as with newly kindled fires, 
So Martin — Sainted Martin, ere he died, 
Paled the vain glory of the Crescent's pride ; 
Shone o'er the East, like Bethl'hem's vivid star, 
And gleam'd on Persia's plains, like meteor from afar! 

" My associates in scribbling," said Julia, with 
a smile, when she had read through her piece, 
" will readily perceive that I have made an humble 
attempt to sketch the short, but brilliant Mis- 
sionary course of the estimable and lamented 
Martyn. It will be my best reward, if these un- 
pretending verses should excite some abler and 
more poetical pen to take up the subject. The 
Rev. I. Sargent's delineation of one of the most 
affecting examples of ' the primitive taste,' which, 
as Milner has admirably remarked, and as Martyn 
loved to remember, was ' to believe, to suffer, and 
to love/ would supply abundant materials for a 
poem. But I will endeavour to make up for the 
deficiency of interest, which you must too easily 
discover in my own performance, by reading to 
you a portion of Montgomery's Greenland, which 
I have here in my Book of Extracts. It is in 
exact accordance with our present subject, and 
represents the three first Moravian Missionaries 
on their voyage to Greenland, in the year 1733. 



238 THE MISSIONARY VOYAGE. 

The moon is watching in the sky ; the stars 

Are swiftly wheeling on their golden cars ; 

Ocean outstretch'd with infinite expanse, 

Serenely slumbers in a glorious trance ; 

The tide, o'er which no troubling spirits breathe, 

Reflects a cloudless firmament beneath ; 

Where, poised as in the centre of a sphere, 

A ship above, and ship below appear ; 

A double image, pictur'd on the deep, 

The vessel o'er its shadow seems to sleep ; 

Yet, like the host of heav'n, that never rest, 

With evanescent motion to the west, 

The pageant glides through loneliness and night, 

And leaves behind a rippling wake of light. 

Hark ! through the calm and silence of the scene, 

Slow, solemn, sweet, with many a pause between. 

Celestial music swells along the air ! 

— No ; — 'tis the ev'ning hymn of praise and pray'r 

From yonder deck ; where, on the stern retir'd, 

Three humble voyagers with looks inspir'd, 

And hearts enkindled with a holier flame, 

Than ever lit to empire or to fame, 

Devoutly stand : — their choral accents rise 

On wings of harmony beyond the skies ; 

And 'midst the songs, that seraph-minstrels sing, 

Day without night to their immortal king, 

These single strains, — which erst Bohemian hills 

Echoed to pathless woods and desert rills ; 

Now heard from Shetland's azure bound, — are 

known 
In heaven ; and He, who sits upon the throne, 
In human form, with mediatorial pow'r, 
Remembers Calvary, and hails the hour, 



THE MISSIONARY VOYAGE. 239 

When, by th' Almighty Father's high decree, 

The utmost north to Him shall bow the knee. 

And, won by love, an untam'd rebel-race 

Kiss the victorious sceptre of his grace. 

Then to His eye, whose instant glance pervades 

Heaven's heights, earth's circle, hell's profoundest 

shades, 
Is there a group more lovely than those three 
Night-watching pilgrims on the lonely sea ? 
Or to His ear, that gathers in one sound 
The voices of adoring worlds around, 
Comes there a breath of more delightful praise 
Than the faint notes his poor disciples raise, 
Ere on the treacherous main they sink to rest, 
Secure as leaning on their Master's breast ? 
They sleep; but memory wakes ; and dreams 

array 
Night in a lively masquerade of day ; 
The land they seek, the land they leave behind, 
Meet on mid-ocean in the plastic mind ; 
One brings forsaken home and friends so nigh. 
That tears in slumber swell th' unconscious eye ; 
The other opens, with prophetic view, 
Perils, which e'en their fathers never knew, 
(Though school'd by suffering, long inur'd to toil, 
Outcasts and exiles from their natal soil ;) 
— Strange scenes, strange men ; untold, untried 

distress ; 
Pain, hardships, famine, cold, and nakedness, 
Diseases ; death in every hideous form, 
On shore, at sea, by flood, by fire, by storm ; 
Wild beasts, and wilder men ; — unmov'd by fear, 
Health, comfort, safety, life, they count not dear, 






240 THE MISSIONARY VOYAGE. 

May they but hope a Saviour's love to show, 

And warn one spirit from eternal woe : 

Nor will they faint ; nor can they strive in vain, 

Since thus — to live is Christ, to die is gain. 

'Tis morn — the bathing moon her lustre shrouds ; 

Wide o'er the east impends an arch of clouds, 

That spans the ocean ; — while the infant dawn 

Peep3 through the portal o'er the liquid lawn, 

That ruffled by an April gale appears, 

Between the gloom and splendour of the spheres, 

Dark-purple, as the moorland-heath, when rain 

Hangs in low vapours o'er th' autumnal plain : 

'Till the full sun, resurgent from the flood. 

Looks on the waves, and turns them into blood ; 

But quickly kindling, as his beams aspire, 

The lambent billows play in forms of fire. 

— Where is the vessel ? — Shining through the light. 

Like the white sea-fowl's horizontal flight, 

Yonder she wings, and skims, and cleaves her way. 

Through refluent foam and iridescent spray. 



The terrors of Jehovah, and his grace," 
The brethren bear to earth's remotest race. 
And now exulting on their swift career, 
The northern waters narrowing in the rear, 
They rise upon th' Atlantic flood, that rolls, 
Shoreless and fathomless, between the poles, 
Whose waves the east and western worlds divide, 
Then gird the globe with one circumfluent tide ; 
For mighty ocean, by whatever name 
Known to vain man, is every where the same, 



THE MISSIONARY VOYAGE. 241 

And deems all regions by his gulphs embrac'd 
But vassal tenures of his sov'reign waste. 
Clear shines the sun ; the surge intensely blue, 
Assumes by day heav'n's own aerial hue : 
Buoyant and beautiful, as through a sky, 
On balanc'd wings, behold the vessel fly ; 
Invisibly impell'd, as though it felt 
A soul, within its heart of oak that dwelt, 
Which broke the billows with spontaneous force, 
Rul'd the free elements, and chose its course. 
Not so : — and yet along the trackless realm, 
A Hand unseen directs th' unconscious helm ; 
The Pow'r that sojourn'd in the cloud by day, 
A fire by night, on Israel's desert way ; 
That Pow'r th' obedient vessel owns : — His will, 
Tempest and calm, and death and life fulfil. 

Day following day, the current smoothly flows ; 
Labour is but refreshment from repose ; 
Perils are vanquish'd ; ev'ry fear resign'd ; 
Peace walks the wave, Hope carols on the wind ; 
And time so sweetly travels o'er the deep, 
They feel his motion like the fall of sleep 
On weary limbs, that, stretch'd in stillness, seem, 
To float upon the eddy of a stream, 
Then sink, — to wake in some transporting dream. 
Thus — while the Brethren far in exile roam, 
Visions of Greenland show their future home. 
—Now a dark spot, but bright'ning as it flies, 
A vagrant sea-fowl glads their eager eyes : 
How lovely, from the narrow deck to see 
The meanest link of nature's family, 
Which makes us feel, in dreariest solitude, 
Affinity with all that breathe renew'd ; 

M 



242 THE MISSIONARY VOYAGE. 

At once a thousand kind emotions start, 

And the hlood warms and mantles round the heart ! 

Another and another day is past ; 
The fourth appears, — the loveliest and the last ; 
The sails are furl'd ; the anchor drags the sand ; 
The boat hath cross'd the creek ;— the Brethren land. 

" Many other parts of this truly interesting 
poem," said Julia, " are as worthy of selection as 
these. But quotation must have its limits." 



CHAPTER XIX 



RESTRAINT UPON THE SEA. 



On Saturday morning, the Rev. Mr. Hamil- 
ton, and his friend Mr. Willoughby, took an 
inland ride, the latter leaving with his young 
people a Meditation, which he found in his 
desk, and which he had written on a former 
visit to the sea-side. Mrs. Hamilton calling in, 
with her family, this Meditation, at her request, 
was read. 

RESTRAINT UPON THE SEA. 

" I had been reading of an extensive and de- 
structive inundation on the continent, wherein the 
feeble barriers raised by human art and strength, 
had been swept away ; and the impression made 
upon my mind, had been heightened by a reference 
to Cowper's Task, where he has sketched the de- 
solations in Sicily, by earthquake and flood. 32 

32 Book II. The Time-piece. 



244 RESTRAINT UPON THE SEA. 

At this very time, ' no small tempest lay ' upon 
the sea, which beat furiously against the shore, as 
though it threatened the earth with invasion. It 
seemed that the Almighty had quitted his grasp 
upon the winds and waves, and given them unre- 
strained liberty. The inhabitants of the town, and 
the summer visitors, were assembled in great num- 
bers on the strand, which had been raised into an 
esplanade by human art, and had for many years 
stemmed the highest tides and roughest seas. 
There was, however, a part where a stream from a 
neighbouring ravine, in finding its way through 
the pebbles and sand, had undermined and weak- 
pned the artificial beach. This yielded to the 
reiterated assaults of the angry deep, which 
in an instant burst through the gap, and 
rushed into the valley. Several cottages on the 
green margin of the stream were overthrown, and 
some verdant and lovely meadows were inundated . 
But the waters, though supplied with fresh aid by 
every successive billow, did not reach far into the 
interior. The tide ebbed, the storm subsided, and, 
but for the shattered cottages and the wasted 
fields, we should now have looked at each other 
with amazement at our recent alarm, equal to 
what we had felt at the moment when the sea 
effected its breach in the embankment. I con- 
tinued my walk beneath the cliffs, as the tide 
receded, and encouraged a train of thought, to 



RESTRAINT UPON THE SEA. 245 

which what I had just witnessed gave rise. — 
I thought of Canute and his wise rebuke of the 
adulation of his courtiers, for I had often been 
upon the identical spot, where he is said to have 
uttered his memorable reproof; and I was naturally 
reminded of Jehovah's answer to Job, out of the 
whirlwind, after his friends had in vain endea- 
voured to silence the complaints of the afflicted 
Patriarch. T sat down beneath a towering cliff, 
which had defied all the fury of the recent tempest, 
and of all the storms of preceding centuries, and 
read the sublime passage : ' Who shut up the sea 
with doors, when it brake forth, as if it had issued 
out of the womb ? when I made the cloud the 
garment thereof, and thick darkness a swad- 
dling-band for it, and brake up for it my decreed 
place, and set bars and doors, and said, Hitherto 
shalt thou come, but no further : and here shall thy 
proud waves be stayed ? ' 33 Job xxxviii. 8 — 11. 
*' The few and far-between irruptions of the 

38 " Thus far shall thy flux and reflux extend. The tides are 
marvellously limited and regulated, not only by the lunar and solar 
attraction, but by the quantum of time required to remove any part 
of the earth's surface, by the rotation of the earth round its axis, 
from under the immediate attractive influence of the sun and moon. 
Hence, the attraction of the sun and moon, and the gravitation of 
the sea to its own centre, which prevent too great a flux on the one 
hand, and too great a reflux on the other, are some of those bars 
and doors by which its proud waves are stayed, and prevented from 
coming farther." See Baxter's Comprehensive Bible. Note y on 
Job xxxviii. 11. 



246 RESTRAINT UPON THE SEA. 

deep, so far from impairing my faith in the con- 
trol exercised by the Lord over the mighty 
waters, rather tended to confirm it. I knew that 
not a single drop of the vast ocean could give 
itself motion, and that it was equally incapable of 
resisting any impulse which its Creator might 
impress upon it. I had just seen a partial instance 
of what it could do as an instrument in his hands. 
I pondered with admiration the restraint, as bene- 
volent as it is powerful, with which he limits its 
agency. The rocks, and cliffs, and highlands, 
soaring into mountains, form its doors ; but these, 
at their Maker's bidding, promptly give it ingress 
and egress, and stupendous as they are, excite my 
astonishment less than that occult restraining 
power, to which the Lord alludes, w^hen he says, 
' I made the cloud the garment thereof, and thick 
darkness a swaddling-band for it.' The cloudy, 
superincumbent atmosphere, and unknown shores, 
frowning darkness over its waters, are as the gar- 
ment and swaddling-bands which the Lord has 
thrown round it, and with which he confines it, 
as a nurse the infant in her arms. I hinted at 
the benevolence of this restraint. Yes : the great 
Mediator's eye and hand superintended the settle- 
ment of those laws by which the universe of 
waters is controlled. "When he prepared the 
heavens, I was there : when he set a compass 
upon the face of the depth : when he strengthened 



RESTRAINT UPON THE SEA. 247 



I he clouds above : when he strengthened the 
ountains of the deep : when he gave to the sea 
is decree, that the waters should not pass his 
ommandment : when he appointed the founda- 
tions of the earth : then — my delights were with 
the sons of men.' Then, Jesus, the power of God, 
and the wisdom of God, condescended to take 
delight in anticipating the wants and the happi- 
ness of the fallen race, whom he designed to 
recover and to save. 

" High-water mark, discernible along the entire 
range of a rocky coast, seems, to a thoughtful eye, 
to be inscribed with that decree of Jehovah, 
' Hitherto shalt thou come, but no further : and 
keie shall thy proud waves be stayed.' There, at 
this moment, I see it lie in its decreed place, like 
a child in its cradle, whose passions have only 
rocked it into sounder sleep. Of late, with others, 
I trembled at the nearness and gigantic power of 
the foaming billows : and now I seem to hear 
Jehovah saying unto them, and unto me, by the 
mouth of his Prophet, ' Fear ye not me ? saith 
the Lord ; will ye not tremble at my presence, 
which have placed the sand for a bound of the 
sea, by a perpetual decree, that it cannot pass it : 
and though the waves thereof toss themselves, yet 
can they not prevail ; though they roar, yet can 
they not pass over it ? ' Jer. v. 22. Alas, at this 
very hour, which divine grace has taught and 



248 RESTRAINT UPON THE SEA. 

inclined me to improve, how many are forgetting, 
amidst their follies and their earthly cares, the 
voice that of late spake to them out of the whirl- 
wind, and the lesson of fear towards God which 
it was destined to teach them ! How few there 
are, who consider, that all the forms of beauty, or 
of terror, with which creation teems, are designed 
by their Author to convey instruction to man, and 
to promote in his bosom, either the love that draws, 
or the fear that impels. Are not floods and earth- 
quakes, thunders and lightnings, storms and 
tempests, eclipses and meteors, tornadoes and 
simooms, some of those tokens, which the Psalmist 
describes as awakening the fears of those, who 
dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea and land ? 
The poor uninformed heathen, accordingly, tremble 
at these 'tokens' of the presence and power of 
the Supreme Being, while nominal Christians 
behold in them nothing more than the results 
of certain established laws, by which the great 
Artificer has left his mundane machine to 
operate. 

" My thoughts had received an impulse, and 
they went on in the same track, while, alternately 
glancing at the Book of God, and at the works of 
its great Author, I sat unseen, except by heaven, 
and by the sea-bird as it flitted by. How similar, 
thought I, is my situation in the world, to that of 
an inhabitant of the sea-shore, who is exposed to 



RESTRAINT UPON THE SEA. 249 

the inundations of the waters ! Feeble are all, 
even the wisest schemes and precautions I may 
adopt, to secure my temporal lot from calamity. 
Times have been, when all have given way, and 
sorrow has burst in upon me with overwhelming 
force. It may be so again. But I am privileged 
to look and rise above the world, and all its alarms 
and dangers. 'Thou rulest the raging of the 
sea.' I recognize 

The secret pulse of thy omnipotence, 

That beats through every motion of the storm. 

" ' The floods have lifted up, O Lord, the 
floods have lifted up their voice : the floods lift up 
their waves ! The Lord on high is mightier than 
the noise of many waters ; yea, than the mighty 
waves of the sea.' ' The Lord sitteth upon the 
flood ; yea, the Lord sitteth king for ever.' It 
cannot be in vain that I send my cry into his pre- 
sence, to entreat him not to ? let the waterflood 
overflow me, neither to let the deep swallow me 
up.' As the inundating tide stops where He com- 
mands it, and retires when it has accomplished 
his purpose ; so affliction cannot proceed beyond 
the limits of his appointment, and it will be with- 
drawn when it has fulfilled his merciful designs. 
My soul, too, is very much exposed to the deep 
waters of spiritual affliction. My own corruptions, 

M 2 



250 RESTRAINT UPON THE SEA. 

aided by the temptations of the world and of Satan, 
and assisted by the innate weakness of all my 
personal resources, sometimes rise as with an over- 
whelming force. This precious volume in my 
hand, however, supplies me with an unfailing 
resource, and helps me to lift up my heart in prayer, 
the language of which is recalled to my remem- 
brance by the scenes which I have been survey- 
ing. ' Save me, O God ; for the waters are come 
in unto my soul. I sink in deep mire, where there 
is no standing ; I am come into deep waters, where 
the floods overflow me.' I recollect, that my 
Saviour has been overtaken by the flood before 
me ; and rejoice in the assurance, that, as He, the 
glorious Head of his mystical body, the church, 
which must pass through great tribulation into 
the kingdom of heaven, has risen to an unap- 
proachable height above the waters, so in succes- 
sion will his members rise, and leave beneath them 
all the waves of this troublesome world. The 
Holy Book of God furnishes me with abundant 
promises, to encourage and sustain the prayer of 
faith. ' When the enemy cometh in like a flood, 
the Spirit of the Lord shall lift up a standard 
against him.' 

" Refreshed by these thoughts, I retraced my 
steps along the shore, and returned homeward 
with a mind invigorated, to improve the present 
calm, or to meet the future storm. I observed 



RESTRAINT UPON THE SEA. 251 

many hands strenuously engaged in repairing the 
breach effected by the sea, and preparing for the 
return of the tide. ' Such,' I said to myself, * is 
the part of man. It is his wisdom and his duty 
to adopt all precautionary means against the day 
of evil: nor less so, to leave those means and 
himself in the hands of God.' " 



CHAPTER XX. 



THE SHIPWRECK. 



Scarcely had the Rev. Mr. Hamilton and his 
friend returned from their ride, when the wind, 
which had been gradually rising through the 
morning, blew a perfect hurricane. A coasting 
brig was observed to be in great distress, and, in 
spite of every effort made by the crew and by some 
pilots who went from the shore, she was driven 
upon the rocks, and went to pieces. The crew, 
however, were most providentially saved by the 
spirited exertions of many, who incurred every 
risk to effect their rescue, and happily succeeded. 
The captain and his men were treated with 
Christian hospitality by the inhabitants of the 
town, and having been supplied with a change 
of clothing, through the kindness of the resident 
Clergyman and some of the visitors, they expressed 
their earnest desire to attend divine service on the 
Sunday morning, and publicly to return thanks to 
God for their deliverance. 



THE SHIPWRECK. 253 

The house of God presented an impressive 
scene, being crowded to excess. So lively and 
deep was the sympathy excited, by the appearance 
of the preserved seamen, and their numerous 
brethren, who accompanied them, that it seemed 
as if the whole assembly had together just escaped 
from the horrors of shipwreck. During the pre- 
vious week, our friend the Vicar had received and 
returned a visit from the Rector of the Parish, 
who prevailed upon him to undertake to occupy 
the pulpit on the Sabbath. Mr. Hamilton had 
prepared several sermons suitable for a watering- 
place, and now delivered the following 

DISCOURSE, UPON THE SHIPWRECK OF ST. PAUL. 

Acts xxvii. 44. 

And so it came to pass, that they escaped all safe to land. 

"St. Luke's narrative of the voyage and ship- 
wreck of the Apostle Paul, on his passage to 
Rome, is fraught with interesting considerations 
to readers in general, but especially to mariners, 
and to residents upon the coasts of the mighty 
deep. Accordingly, I propose to place some par- 
ticulars of that narrative before you, with a few 
practical remarks, which may, under the blessed 
teaching of God the Holy Spirit, render our medi- 
tations personally profitable. It is not my inten- 
tion to offer you any critical observations on the 



254 THE SHIPWRECK. 

several topics, which here open a field for the 
researches of the curious. My object will rather 
be to awaken reflection in the inconsiderate, and 
to direct and aid the faith of the believer, by a 
review and application of some circumstances in 
the voyage of St. Paul, which bear an instructive 
analogy to our own situation and prospects. For, 
beloved brethren, we are upon a voyage : time is 
the sea across which we are sailing : human life 
is the frail vessel in which we are embarked : our 
ultimate destination is the tribunal of the Uni- 
versal King, whither we are going for judgment : 
in the conduct of the voyage, human opinion is too 
commonly regarded, in preference to divine direc- 
tion : we are surrounded by dangers, great, 
numerous, and imminent, in the midst of which, 
the believer alone enjoys perfect security : we are 
impressively taught the inseparable connexion be- 
tween the means and the end : no sacrifice is to 
be spared to insure our preservation : a ship wreck 
awaits us all : but final salvation will be the result 
of faith in the divine word. On each of these 
particulars I proceed to make some brief observa- 
tions, for a part of which I hold myself indebted 
to others, who have preceded me in this use of 
St. Luke's narrative. 

"I. We ourselves are upon a voyage. — 
We entered upon this voyage on our first coming 
into life ; we have ever since been pressing onwards ; 



THE SHIPWRECK. 255 

and to stop or to return is not in our power. We 
must go forward. Nor do we know how long or 
how short may be the time to be spent in our 
course. We may be very rapidly carried across 
the waters, and terminate our voyage to our own 
astonishment and that of others. Or we may be 
lingeringly detained upon our way, beyond all 
expectation. At sea or in a foreign port, the sea- 
man considers himself to be on his voyage. He 
finds no place of lasting rest, between the harbour 
from which he starts and the haven for which he 
is bound. He may touch at many ' Fair havens/ 
but none of them are his haven. Fair as they may 
be to the eye, they have neither the commodious- 
ness nor safety of his own port. Nor have we 
here any continuing city. Again and again are 
we startled by a voice from unseen lips, ' Arise 
and depart ; for this is not your rest, because it is 
polluted.' Brethren, endeavour seriously to enter 
into this view of your actual situation in the 
present world. 

" II. Time is the sea across which we are 
sailing. — As the Creator's hand has thrown 
around the sea impassable barriers, except where 
it issues in a more ample expanse of waters : so 
has he set limits to time, which is to issue in the 
boundless ocean of eternity. I may be pardoned 
a personal allusion. At this moment I am con- 
scious of the awful sensation which I once felt in 



256 THE SHIPWRECK. 

my school-boy days, when I had ventured into a 
crazy little boat, upon a rapid stream not far from 
its mouth, and I perceived myself being hurried 
towards the ocean. Let us each thoughtfully 
ponder the narrowness and the treacherous nature 
of the scene we have to traverse, and the incon- 
ceivable extent of that future in which the present 
will terminate. Yonder element is not so deceit- 
ful to him who embarks upon its surface, as is 
human life to the children of men. The gentle 
ripplings of the waters round the vessel are like 
the kisses of an enemy, nor less so are the smiles 
of this present evil world. It is not to be trusted, 
even when it appears the most inviting : no, not 
even when its smooth surface reflects the cloudless 
heavens. It is but a reflection — a picture — a 
visionary semblance of glory and happiness, and 
he, who should infatuatedly strive to reach the 
imaged heaven below, would perish in the attempt. 
"HI. Human life is the frail vessel in 
which we are embarked. — When man first 
came from the hands of his divine Maker, he was 
perfect and immortal. But sin introduced death, 
and the countless other ills, which have impaired 
the once goodly fabric of our nature. In the ante- 
diluvian race it retained enough of its pristine 
vigour to weather the changes of nearly a thou- 
sand years : but now it is scarcely sea-worthy for 
a voyage that is to continue but threescore years 



THE SHIPWRECK. 257 

and ten. As in our navy it is an extraordinary- 
circumstance, for the most skilfully constructed 
vessel to last beyond a certain limited number of 
years ; so, instances of particular longevity amongst 
mankind are looked upon with wonder, as excep- 
tions to the general order of things. That which 
is perishable, indeed, is confined to, one of the 
constituent parts of our nature ; and the animal 
life and its organized frame, the body, may with 
the greater propriety be compared with the frail 
and fragile bark, exposed to the gnawing worm, 
and the destructive elements. So far from the 
number of marine calamities being a matter of 
surprise, it is, rather, astonishing that so many 
vessels outlive the storm that agitates the waters : 
and, looking at the fine, delicate, and compara- 
tively feeble texture of the human frame, we are 
amazed at its lasting so long. Truly, we are fear- 
fully and wonderfully made : and if a vessel, com- 
pletely equipped and navigating the ocean, be 
worthy of admiration as the master-piece of human 
ingenuity, how much honour and praise are due 
to God, for the consummate wisdom which he has 
displayed in the organization of that most exqui- 
site machine, the human body ! This is the vessel 
in which we pilgrims to eternity are prosecuting 
our eventful and momentous voyage — a vessel, as 
frail in its durability as it is marvellous in its 
construction. 



258 THE SHIPWRECK. 

"IV. Our ultimate destination is the 

TRIBUNAL OF THE UNIVERSAL KlNG, WHITHER 

we are going for judgment. — This observa- 
tion, you easily apprehend, is founded upon the 
circumstances under which St. Paul and his 
fellow prisoners sailed for Rome. He had ap- 
pealed unto Csesar, from the partial and unjust 
judgment of inferior tribunals. They were pro- 
ceeding to take their trial at Rome, from similar 
or other causes. We all are not only charged with 
guilt, but actually guilty. We stand most evi- 
dently convicted of high treason against the 
Majesty of Heaven. We have ourselves taken up 
arms against our rightful sovereign, and have 
joined with others in open rebellion against his 
throne. Our hearts have been at enmity with 
God, and our lives opposed to his will. The law 
has already passed its sentence — Death ! The 
sinner is on his way to hear this awful sentence 
confirmed, and fully executed. Indeed, he is now 
spiritually dead. Temporal death is at hand. 
Eternal death, with all its bitter pains, its worm 
that never dies, and its flame that never can be 
quenched, is the plenary penalty that awaits him. 
But the Son of God has most graciously interposed. 
His spotless obedience and atoning death have 
expiated the rebellion of man. He has become 
the Saviour of all men ; though in the end, espe- 
cially and exclusively of them that believe in his 



THE SHIPWRECK. 259 

name. * There is now, therefore, no condemna- 
tion to them that are in Christ Jesus.' The law, 
indeed, is not rescinded, but the believer has a 
valid and unfailing appeal to ' the Judge of all/ 
and he is proceeding to the great tribunal to hear 
the joyful sentence of bis acquittal pronounced in 
the presence of assembled worlds. On his voyage, 
it is true, he may have to complain of still being 
' tied and bound with the chain of his sins/ and 
exposed to the malice and violence of his spiritual 
adversaries, who may sometimes threaten him with 
destruction ; but then, like St. Paul, he is cheered 
by a voice from heaven : ' Fear not ! - 

" On the other hand, how unblest are they, 
who can make no such appeal as the believer in 
the Lord Jesus Christ ! Like convicts on their 
voyage, they may endeavour, and may even suc- 
ceed in the infatuated attempt, to banish thought. 
Their carelessness and mirth, however, does not 
alter either their character or their destination. 
They must all appear before the judgment-seat of 
Christ, to give an account of the things done in 
the body ; and if they have not previously known, 
loved, and served him, as their Lord and Saviour, 
they must at last tremblingly acknowledge him as 
their unrelenting Judge, and for ever suffer the 
tremendous penalty of his just wrath. 

" V. In the conduct of the voyage, hu- 
man OPINION IS TOO COMMONLY REGARDED, IN 



260 THE SHIPWRECK. 

PREFERENCE TO THE DIVINE WORD. — That WOrd 

may be styled the book of spiritual navigation; 
and it contains charts and instructions, precisely 
adapted to the wants of man. Its origin is divine, 
for God is its Author. Its contents are beyond 
price, for they are unmixed truth. But who has 
not fallen into perilous and ruinous errors, by 
neglecting this heavenly directory ? Who has 
not, in his own conduct, manifested the proneness 
of our nature to follow the dictates of human, 
rather than divine wisdom ? ' The centurion be- 
lieved the master and the owner of the ship, more 
than those things which were spoken by Paul.' 
* Thus it happens with us, on many occasions/ 
and on none more than where our souls are con- 
cerned. ' We go to man for advice, and miscarry ; 
when we might have it from God, and succeed. 
We live in an age when human wisdom is magni- 
fied far beyond its value ; and, in the course of 
our education, we take its authority implicitly in 
many things, where the Bible would teach us 
better, and make us wiser, as well as happier. For 
want of this, we too frequently make shipwreck 
of faith ; and, in many instances, reason, learning, 
true policy, and true philosophy, are shipwrecked 
along with it.' Brethren, in the Holy Scriptures 
you have an infallible chart, and a compass whose 
needle is subject to no variations. It points with 
unvarying accuracy to the polar star of human 



THE SHIPWRECK. 261 

hopes, and that star is Christ. But as the mari- 
ner cannot avail himself of his charts and his 
compass, without the aid of light : so we require 
the revealing influences of 'the Holy Spirit, to 
guide us into all truth. Be encouraged to look 
to God for light ; for ' the meek will he guide in 
judgment : the meek will he teach his way.' 
"VI. We are surrounded by dangers, 

GREAT, NUMEROUS, AND IMMINENT; IN THE 
MIDST OF WHICH, THE BELIEVER IN CHRIST 

alone enjoys perfect security. — How for- 
midable, and countless, and near are the perils 
of the seaman's life ! It has, with perfect truth, 
been said, that there is but an inch between 
him and death — the mere thickness of the plank 
which separates him from the closely pressing 
wave. In a calm, or in the fairest gale, the bare 
starting of a plank may give entrance to the sea, 
and in the twinkling of an eye he may founder 
and perish. Fire may, as it were, form an un- 
natural alliance with its natural enemy, water ; 
and he may sustain the very extreme of human 
misery. In addition to these and innumerable 
other evils, the lee-shore, the sunken rock, and 
the tempest, often threaten his safety. And how 
subtile — how thin and weak is the separation 
between us all and death ! How often is the 
smiling, but deceitful calm, fatal to the soul ! 
How destructive are the passions, when they break 



262 THE SHIPWRECK. 

out, and rage with ungovernable fury ! How many- 
concealed — how many sudden calamities lurk 
around us, or are ready to burst upon us ! The 
navigator of time's peril-thronged sea has to be on 
his guard in more than one spot, where a Scylla 
and a Charybdis watch for his destruction. How 
often, during his voyage, does Euroclydon rise in 
all his fury ! How frequently is he ' exceedingly 
tossed with the tempest ! ' Are there not seasons 
when he is, as it were, ' driven up and down in 
Adria : when neither sun nor stars in many days 
appear : when no small tempest lies on him ; and 
all hope that he shall be saved is taken away : 
when fear points a rock beneath every wave ; 
when all resources seem to fail; and when his 
eyes fail in looking for the morning? Many 
temporal trials are aptly pictured by these cir- 
cumstances of the Apostle's literal voyage. Nor 
are they less descriptive of the Christian's spi- 
ritual difficulties.' 

" But ' God is often nearest to his saints, when 
he appears farthest off. To us, indeed, short- 
sighted as we are, it is more easy to discover and 
acknowledge his attention, when we are sensible 
of his bounty. We see and adore the hand of 
the Creator, in the clearness of the fountain, the 
brightness of the sunshine, and the calmness of 
the ocean ; but his power as a Saviour, is mani- 
fested in the storms and troubles of life. Therefore 



THE SHIPWRECK. 263 

he brings his servants into distress, that he may- 
make his power known by bringing them out of 
it; with this farther advantage to themselves, 
that they are exercised and improved by the trial 
of their faith. It is for this end that we see the 
life of the great Apostle diversified with such 
contrary visitations. On the occasion mentioned 
in the text, we see him on ship-board, in the 
company of soldiers and sailors, whose conversation 
is too generally of the coarsest sort, and upon the 
lowest subjects : very unsuitable to the dignity 
and purity of an Apostle. But in this situation, 
it pleases God to distinguish and exalt him as a 
preacher and a deliverer. The ship that carries 
him becomes like the ark of Noah ; he himself is 
like that second father of mankind, and all the 
souls embarked with him, whatever their charac- 
ter may be, are preserved for his sake.' Thus the 
Christian is the special object of divine care. He 
has upon him the seal — the mark of God, who 
seems to say to him, in all situations of trial, 
' Fear not : for I have redeemed thee ; I have 
called thee by thy name ; thou art mine. When 
thou passest through the waters, I will be with 
thee!' Frequently, too, are the unregenerated 
spared for the sake of the people of God ; and not 
seldom are the prayers and labours of believers 
blessed to the salvation of many. ' Lo, God hath 
given thee all them that sail with thee/ 



264 THE SHIPWRECK. 






"VII. We are impressively taught the in- 
separable CONNEXION BETWEEN THE MEANS 

and the end. — 'Except these ! abide in the ship, ye 
cannot be saved.' The sailors were about to aban- 
don the vessel, secure themselves, as they thought, 
and leave their companions to their fate. Now, 
St. Paul had been assured, by an angel of God, that 
in this voyage there should be no loss of any man's 
life. He had expressed his own full assurance of 
this fact. ' Sirs, be of good cheer : for I believe 
God, that it shall be even as it was told me/ 
Yet, in this critical moment, the Apostle declared, 
that the safety of the whole depended upon their 
abiding in the ship, and pursuing the plan which 
he should prescribe. ' To suppose an end, is to 
suppose the means that lead to it : to hope to 
obtain the end, through a dependance on the 
divine promises, while we neglect the means 
which should lead to that end, is the sin of tempt- 
ing God : we tempt him to transgress the rules of 
his own wisdom and justice, by an undue exercise 
of his power. He promises to work with us, not 
without us : his help is an encouragement to 
labour, not an excuse for idleness. The promises 
of God are a security to those who work under 
them.' 

" ' What God hath joined together, let no man 
put asunder.' He has established a necessary 
connexion between cause and effect, between means 



THE SHIPWRECK. 265 

and end. The submission of the whole man to 
the obedience of faith — the believing heart — the 
spiritual and heavenly walk — are the prescribed 
means. The end is salvation. Happily for us, 
our great Surety has undertaken all for us. ' Work 
out your own salvation with fear and trembling : 
for it is God that worketh in us to will and to do, 
of his good pleasure.' 

" VIII. No SACRIFICE IS TO BE SPARED TO 

insure our preservation. — 'They lightened 
the ship, and cast out the wheat into the sea.' 
r What will not men do for the saving of their 
lives? Their bread itself is cast away, when it 
endangers the life it ought to preserve. Thus 
should men act for the saving of their souls : 
they should lay aside every weight that would 
render their escape from sin and sorrow more 
difficult and hazardous. Nothing must be retained 
that is inconsistent with their safety. A ship-load 
of corn is of no value, when men are sinking with 
the weight of it to the bottom of the sea ; and 
what are all the possessions of this life, but super- 
fluous and destructive, if their tendency is to sink 
the soul into perdition ? When a vessel on a 
tempestuous sea is about to founder, with the 
weight of the corn she has on board, then it be- 
comes undeniable, that the life of the mariners 
does not consist in the abundance of the things 
which they possess ; so far from it, that from hence 

N 



266 THE SHIPWRECK. 

is their danger ; and their abundance is their ruin. 
Every man who abounds with earthly possessions, 
in u world of sin and temptation, is in danger of 
being overset by them. If there were no storms 
in life, no blind appetites to agitate and disorder 
us, we might then possess much with little danger : 
a vessel deeply laden may float in a calm sea. But 
when the winds blow, and the waves arise, and 
there is a bottomless gulph underneath, ready 
to swallow us up, the meanest understanding must 
be convinced, that abundance is not to be coveted. 
Suppose a ship to be laden with the treasures of 
the Indies : suppose her to be painted, and gilded, 
and carved, with all possible elegance ; of what 
use is all this, when she is going to be cast away 
with her own weight ? Then, the plain, unorna- 
mented, light-freighted vessel, which bounds over 
the waves, and bears her passengers safe into the 
port, is rather to be chosen. Look at the great 
and the wealthy of this world, and see how often 
they are tossed about with storm and passion, 
beyond the experience of other men ; the slaves 
of pride, avarice, and ambition ; to the torment of 
their lives and the hazard of their souls. ' They 
that will be rich/ saith the Apostle, ' fall into 
temptation and a snare, and into many foolish and 
hurtful lusts, which drown men in destruction and 
perdition/ — We are embarked on a dangerous 
ocean ; and the great question with us all, is, or at 



THE SHIPWRECK. 267 

least, ought to be, this — ' What shall we do to be 
saved ? * One method is, to lighten the vessel so 
far as it is necessary ; to throw aside every weight 
that may endanger our salvation ; and to cast out 
even the wheat itself into the sea, when the pro- 
vision we have made for the body endangers the 
life of the soul ; that so we may escape out of this 
troublesome world, naked and unprovided, to the 
heavenly shore.' O brethren, if any of you are in 
circumstances that call for such a sacrifice, seek 
strength of God to dispose and enable you to 
make it : for no easy thing is it to give up the en- 
cumbering possessions and honours of this world, 
even when we clearly perceive that they endanger 
our interests in the world which is to come. The 
young Ruler, mentioned in the gospel, perished 
within view of heaven, 'because he had great 
possessions.' Not that any temporal sacrifices 
can purchase our salvation. Far be the erroneous 
and ruinous thought! The only and sufficient 
price of that has been given in the blood of the 
Lamb. This needs no addition. The ransom is 
complete. But unbelief and unmodified lusts 
may debar the soul from all benefit resulting from 
that atonement. 

" IX. A SHIPWRECK AWAITS US ALL. ' HoW- 

beit we must be cast upon a certain island/ The 
event fulfilled the prediction. ' It is also appointed 
unto men, once to die.' To the impenitent and 



268 THE SHIPWRECK. 

faithless, this necessity is most terrific. Death 
will be to them a hopeless and irremediable wreck. 
If they remain such, they must inevitably sink 
into the gulph which has no bottom or shore ; 
where 

torture without end 
Still urges, and a fiery deluge, fed 

With ever-burning sulphur unconsum'd. 

" The believer, too, must suffer shipwreck, but 
not the wreck of all. These fragile barks — these 
mortal bodies, must be dissolved, either, as it were 
by the sudden dash of the tempests, or by the 
gradually destructive e violence of the waves.' 
Infant life, like the light skiff, which fills and 
sinks in the first wave it meets : youth, though 
resembling the gaily and richly ornamented yacht : 
manhood, though strong as the heart of oak that 
proudly rides in the embattled line ; and age, 
already assimilated to the vessel which is on its 
last voyage, and then destined to be broken up — 
all sustain the terrific shock of death. But, behold 
St. Paul, standing in undaunted firmness upon 
the deck when the vessel strikes, and is torn 
piece-meal by the fierce elements ! Amidst the 
general confusion and dismay, he is tranquil. 
Memory recals the promise of that God, whose he 
is, and whom he serves. Still, he seems to hear 
the voice of the angel, breathing softly through the 



THE SHIPWRECK. 269 

howlings of the storm, 'Fear not, Paul!* His 
calm and intrepid conduct in the hour of extremest 
peril is a strong encouragement to those around 
him. 

" Believer in the Son of God, it is thy privilege 
thus to stand upon the verge of life, and anticipate 
its wreck. Paint the scene in all its possible hor- 
rors. View the angel of death riding upon every 
dark billow. Then call to mind the last words of 
Moses, before Israel crossed the overflowings of 
Jordan. ' There is none like unto the God of 
Jeshurun, who rideth upon the heaven in thy 
help, and in his excellency on the sky. The 
eternal God is thy refuge, and underneath are the 
everlasting arms. — Happy art thou, O Israel : 
who is like unto thee, O people, saved by the 
Lord ! ' While others, who, having lived without 
faith and love towards the Saviour, die without 
hope, shrink back from the wave which is to 
wreck their all, — thou art permitted to adopt the 
Apostle's language on another occasion, and to 
exclaim, in the near view of thy last, great change, 
' I know whom I have believed, (or trusted,) and 
am persuaded that he is able to keep that which 
I have committed unto him against that day.' 

V Brethren, were you to experience the wreck 
of dissolving nature before to-morrow's sun shall 
rise upon the earth, what, judging from the 
present state of your souls, (and that forms the 



270 THE SHIPWRECK. 

only correct rule of judgment,) what would be 
your situation ? Would you be cast away and 
perish, or would you * escape all safe to land—to 
the shore of heaven ? These questions may in- 
troduce our last observation. 

"X. Final salvation will be the result 
of faith in the divine word. — We read no 
particulars respecting St. Paul's deliverance. We 
are generally informed, that ' they who could 
swim, boldly cast themselves into the sea, and got 
to land ; and the rest, some on boards, and some 
on broken pieces of the ship. And so it came to 
pass, that they escaped all safe to land.' This 
may beautifully illustrate the varied circumstances 
attendant upon the manner in which believers are 
ultimately saved. God honoured, by temporal 
preservation, the confidence placed in his word 
by St. Paul and his shipwrecked companions, 
although that confidence was distinguished by 
every possible diversity of shade, from the un- 
doubting faith of the Apostle, to the trembling 
hope of the most timid. The degree of personal 
comfort, peace, and joy, possessed by Christians 
in dying circumstances, chiefly depends upon the 
degree of faith which they exercise in the divine 
promises, and is usually commensurate with the 
devotional spirituality of their previous life. But 
salvation is freely promised and given to faith as 
a divine principle, irrespectively of its extent — to 



THE SHIPWRECK. 271 

faith in the atoning blood and justifying righteous- 
ness of the Lord Jesus Christ. Some, strong in 
faith, and giving glory to God, like St. Paul, 
courageously meet their last hour, and land in 
grateful triumph upon the heavenly shore ; while 
others reach that shore, as it were, clinging in 
trembling hope to some plank or broken fragment 
of the ship. The former are buoyed up through 
the waters by the vigorous efforts of faith in the 
whole word and work of the Saviour. The latter 
are just sustained by a hold upon some one promise 
of his word. But all are ultimately saved, who 
have been enabled by grace to believe in Jesus, 
and to receive his word as the basis of their hopes, 
and the directory of their course in life. 

" Here the allegorical parallel fails. St. Paul, 
indeed, and his companions, found safety, and 
even experienced kindness, on that unknown shore : 
but they still were strangers in a strange land, 
and far from home and rest. Not so the Christian, 
when he arrives upon that coast, which to him is 
as yet known only by testimony. It is not a bare 
rescue from the bottomless abyss of hell : it is not 
mere safety that he expects, and that he there will 
realize. It is more — infinitely more. ' Eye hath 
not seen, nor ear heard, neither hath it entered 
into the heart of man to conceive, what God hath 
prepared for them that love him.' It is a state, of 
which fruitful Canaan, and still more fruitful Eden, 






272 THE SHIPWRECK. 

were faintly typical. It is heaven — the fulness of 
joy, and pleasure for evermore. It is the presence 
of God, the enjoyment of his love, the partici- 
pation of his glory, and a transformation into his 
image. 

" Thither may we all ultimately arrive ; recount 
the perils and mercies of our voyage ; congratulate 
each other on our rescue and our happiness ; offer 
up thanks for our preservation in the Celestial 
Temple, and join the song of praise to our great 
Deliverer. Amen." 

The preacher introduced a short and touching 
address, directed more immediately to the ship- 
wrecked mariners, which, being only of local 
and temporary interest and application, is here 
omitted. 



CHAPTER XXL 



THE SEA-SIDE HAMLET. 



The mind of a truly devout Christian is not 
satisfied with a single visit to the house of God 
on the Sabbath day, when an opportunity presents 
itself for repeating that visit. The second service 
of the sanctuary is as important and desirable to 
him, as the first ; nor can he fall into the fashion- 
able and unchristian practice of leaving that 
second service to servants, and other members of 
the lower ranks of society. He feels it alike his 
duty and privilege to consecrate to God the 
afternoon and evening of the day of rest; and 
scrupulously discountenances, by his example, the 
desecration of those seasons to the lounge and the 
promenade. 

Our two families again met in the afternoon, in 
the church-path, and as they had much antici- 
pated the time for the commencement of divine 
service, they occupied some seats which had been 
placed there for the accommodation of visitors. 
The sacred enclosure around the church com- 
n2 



274 THE SEA-SIDE HAMLET. 

manded a wide view of the sea, whose now placid 
surface tended to soothe the reflective mind, and 
prepare it for the employments of the sanctuary. 
On looking inland, the sun was seen to gild 
several village towers and spires, whose bells 
mingled their sounds in the passing gale, and led 
Theophilus to recite a few lines, to which he was 
very partial. 

" Come, come to me," the meek Redeemer cries ; 

" Come, come to Christ," the echoing bell replies : 

" Come, all ye weary, all ye heavy prest, 

Your burthens bring, and I will give you rest." 

Arise, my soul, and joyful leave thy home, 

And, answering, say, " I come, dear Lord, I come !" 

"lam here forcibly reminded," said the Vicar, 
* of one of the scenes of my early labours, and of 
an event connected with that scene, and partly 
arising instrumentally out of those labours. For 
three years my duty called me every Sunday 
afternoon to the service of a small church, at two 
or three miles distance from our residence. The 
local population did not amount to a hundred, 
but there were many villages within an easy walk, 
and from these, many persons attended with an 
apparent desire to hear the word of God. It also 
served as a kind of test, to try and elicit the 
earnestness of many in my larger parish, who, by 
thus seeking the advantage of a second, or even 



THE SEA-SIDE HAMLET. 275 

a third service, encountered some little obloquy 
from their less anxious neighbours, and were 
called to an avowal, that they * esteemed the 
words of their Saviour more than their necessary 
food.' Many a handful of precious seed was I 
wont to scatter by the way, as I happened to 
overtake the various groups of villagers on their 
road ; and often was my own soul refreshed by 
the unrestrained utterance of their simple piety. 
The flowering hedges, and green lanes, and bleat- 
ing flocks, aided my meditations when I was 
alone, and supplied me with many an apt illus- 
tration of the subject, on which I was about 
to address my rustic congregations ; while my 
thoughts experienced a sensible expansion and 
elevation, when, as I approached the hamlet, I 

caught bold views of the B Channel, and 

the hilly country beyond it. L church stood 

just below the brow of a hill, which intervened 
between it and the shore, and gave it a partial 
shelter from high westerly gales ; though I have 
often proceeded with my gospel message, when 
my voice could with difficulty surmount the 
mingled roar of the tempest and the waters, and 
when the wind has been making rude and forcible 
entrance through the unceiled roof of our simple 
edifice. O how they listened to the word of life ! 
How eagerly did the mechanic and the husband- 
man lend an ear to that gospel, which told them 



276 THE SEA-SIDE HAMLET. 

of Him, who himself had once become poor to 
make them rich ; who had shed his blood to wash 
away their guilt, and to save them from eternal 
misery ; and who had purchased and prepared for 
them a place of repose, where the wicked cease 
from troubling, and the weary are at rest ! I 
sometimes felt a joy worth more than worlds, 
while, amidst the mingled uproar of the winds 
and neighbouring waves, I preached unto them 
Jesus, as ' the way, the truth, and the life/ ' able 
to save them to the uttermost that come unto God 
by him/ 

" There, often knelt and sat one, to me unknown 
but by her countenance, who was removed to her 
Lord's more immediate presence before I became 
acquainted with the circumstances which I am 
about to relate. She was the child of parents in 
a middling station of life, who had endeavoured 
to instruct her in true religion, and used to bring 
her with them to our little church. Her age 
might be about twenty, and her general health 

seemed to promise length of days. Mary G 

loved to hear the gospel, though as yet she did 
not feel her personal need of its great and gracious 
provision for lost sinners. Her opinion of her 
own safety had not been disturbed, and she enter- 
tained no doubt that her prospects for eternity 
were fair. It pleased the convincing Spirit of 
God, however, to teach her a very different lesson. 



THE SEA-SIDE HAMLET. 277 

She was enlightened to see the utter defectiveness 
of her own righteousness, moral and creditable as 
had been the tenor of her outward life ; and she 
was brought into great spiritual distress at the 
perception of her real state, as a sinner before 
God, without any personal plea in her behalf in 
bar of the condemnatory sentence of the holy and 
broken law. At this juncture she was taken ill, 
and her sickness proved to be unto death. Her 
mental disquietude and alarm increased with her 
indisposition, until she sunk into the very depths 
of despair. It was impossible, she would say, for 
one, who, being actually so vile, had fancied and 
prided herself upon being righteous, to obtain the 
mercy promised in the gospel, only to the broken- 
hearted and consciously guilty sinner. She now 
pleaded against her own soul with even more 
ardour than she had previously argued for its 
safety. ' Her soul refused to be comforted ' by 
any of the numerous and scriptural suggestions of 
her religious friends ; and it seemed as if she was 
to go down to the grave sorrowing, and without 
hope. 

if One day, not long before her decease, being 
engaged in conversation with her nurse, who, 
happily, was not ignorant of the truth as it is in 

Jesus, Mary G adopted the same line of 

self-condemning argument, and stated, in strong 
and affecting terms, that she could not believe in 



278 THE SEA-SIDE HAMLET. 

the Saviour ; — that she found herself incapable of 
so reposing in him, as to find rest and peace to 
her soul. ' Then/ said her nurse, with a kind of 
desperate animation, on finding that all her en- 
deavours to inspire hope and confidence were 
fruitless, — ' Then turn your back upon the 
Saviour ! ' ' Turn my back upon Him ! ' replied 
Mary, ' no : never ! Nurse, be kind enough to 
leave me.' The nurse quitted the room, and 
waited till Mary summoned her to return, who, on 
her re-entrance, thus addressed her. '* O nurse, 
your words sunk to my heart, and, by the blessing 
of God, have done that for me which nothing else 
could effect. I have approached the Lord Jesus 
Christ in prayer, and he has heard me. Now I 
can — now I do believe ! ' 

" From that time, the soul of Mary G was 

released from its bondage and its terrors, and they 
never returned. Within a few days, she peacefully 
breathed out her spirit into the hands of Him, 
whom she now knew and rejoiced in, as the Lord 
our righteousness. Since that period, I have 
seldom, if ever, visited a church situated near the 

sea coast, without recollecting Mary G , and 

the remarkable manner in which it pleased God 
to bring her soul to peace. May we, in waiting 
upon God, in this his storm-beaten temple > ex- 
perience the application of his promises to our 
own hearts, and feel both excited and encouraged 



THE SEA-SIDE HAMLET. 279 

to walk worthy of Him, who hath called us to his 
kingdom and glory, through a system of mercy 
which as effectually honours his law as it secures 
our salvation. May the constant supply of his 
blessed Spirit keep us at middle distance from 
self-justifying pride and ignorance, and from 
Christ-distrusting and cheerless despondency. It 
may be a question, which is most dishonourable 
to the Lord — the pride of the pharisaical, the 
wilful transgression of the profligate, or the un- 
belief of the despairing. Of this we may be 
assured, that we cannot glorify the Saviour more 
than by implicitly crediting his promise, ' Him 
that cometh to me, I will in nowise cast out.' 
Let us now go to his footstool, and humbly, yet 
confidently, plead for the fulfilment of his faithful 
word." 



CHAPTER XXII 



HOPE THE SOUL'S ANCHOR. 



The Willoughbys and two or three other 
friends, having, at their own request, been cheer- 
fully permitted to meet the Vicar's family in his 
drawing-room, at the hour of domestic prayer in 
the evening, the simple service was opened with 
a hymn, the subject of which was the more ap- 
propriate and touching, because another storm 
had gathered in the atmosphere, and was then 
hanging over the sea in dense and almost tangible 
blackness, which was alternately relieved and 
heightened by the lightning's flash, " wrapping 
ether in a blaze." 

HYMN. 

Dark, and darker low'rs the sky — 
Ocean swells — the iightnings glare — 
Thunder rends the torrid air — 

All proclaim Jehovah nigh ! 

From his eye that vivid flash — 

From His foot that pealing crash ! 



281 

Could'st thou meet Him, my soul ! — 

Meet him, and be undismay'd, 

Should He now, in clouds array'd, 
Come and fire the melting pole ? 
Could'st thou hail his Advent now, 
Glad in heart, with lifted brow ? 

Yes : though frail this mortal bark, 

Anchor'd to th' Eternal Rock, 

I can meet the tempest's shock, 
Calm, as rode the pilgrim's ark, 
When, to wreck and ruin hurl'd, 
Sunk the former guilty world. 

Hope, my anchor, steadfast, sure, 

Holds me to my Saviour's side ; 

Where, while safely moor'd I ride, 
Faith, my cable, will endure. 
Come, Lord Jesus ! — quickly come, 
Take thy storm-worn pilgrim home ! 

This and the concluding hymn were Julia's, 
who had written them the preceding evening; but 
none knew that they were her compositions, 
except her father, who now expounded the passage 
of Holy Writ, which had aided her in writing 
them. " God, willing more abundantly to show 
unto the heirs of promise the immutability of his 
counsel, confirmed it by an oath : that, by two 
immutable things, in which it was impossible for 
God to lie, we might have a strong consolation, 
who have fled for refuge to lay hold upon the 



282 

hope set before us : which hope we have as an 
anchor of the soul, both sure and steadfast, and 
which entereth into that within the veil ; whither 
the forerunner is for us entered, even Jesus." 
Heb. vi. 17—20. 

" I observed," said the Vicar, in his exposition, 
" that, besides the wreck, which we all witnessed, 
the storm of yesterday drove many vessels from 
their moorings in the harbour. A few only rode 
out the storm. This circumstance powerfully 
brought to my recollection the words of St. Paul, 
which I have now read. The persons, who are 
interested in the strong consolation, derivable 
from the immutability of the divine counsel, are 
' the heirs of promise.' In other words, believers. 
Every soul that receives, believes, and rests upon 
the covenant engagements of God in Christ, is an 
' heir of promise/ having a title to all the present 
grace and future glory, which are embraced by 
the exceeding great and precious promises of God. 
An heir of large estates may be robust or feeble : 
but this does not affect the validity of his title, 
although it may affect his enjoyment, from the 
anticipation of his future lot. So the heir of 
divine promise may be strong or weak in faith : 
but his claim remains unchangeable, though his 
comfort of expectation may vary. Are we humble, 
penitent believers in the word of the Lord ? 



HOPE THE SOUL'S ANCHOR. 283 

" Observe the ground of faith. It is Jehovah's 
promise. In that promise God deems it of high 
importance, both for his own glory and our hap- 
piness, that we should unhesitatingly rest. The 
adverb ' more abundantly/ here, connects with 
the participle ' willing/ and expresses, if we may 
so speak, the earnest desire of God, that his 
people should implicitly believe him. What a 
singular display of condescension ! Oh, that we 
were as abundantly willing to believe, as the Lord 
is that we should believe. Lord, increase our 
faith ! We believe a friend — a tried friend, upon 
his bare promise. We give credit even to a 
stranger, upon his oath, though ignorance may 
have betrayed him into error, and though villainy 
may have led him into the crime of perjury. And 
do we hesitate to place full confidence in the word 
of our tried heavenly friend ? In condescension, 
therefore, to our pitiable weakness, God confirms 
his promise by an oath. 

" It is his counsel — it is his will, that those 
who believe in Jesus, shall have all that is really 
beneficial to them, both of temporal and spiritual 
good, in their passage through time into eternity — 
pardon, favour, justification, assisting grace, con- 
solation, peace, hope, joy, and in the world to 
come, life everlasting. This is the counsel of God. 
The unbeliever rejects this gracious counsel against 
himself. The child of faith is here invited to 



284 HOPE THE SOUL'S ANCHOR. 

meditate upon its immutability. As soon shall 
the very throne of the Eternal totter to its fall, as 
his counsel change. Can the wisdom which 
formed the design vacillate? Can the power 
which has undertaken its execution fail? Can 
the love which delighteth in mercy grow indifferent 
to the objects of its choice ? In a word, Can the 
faithfulness of God lose its very essence ? No : it 
is impossible for God to lie. How strong is the 
consolation which we may have from these con- 
siderations ! Consolation, strong in itself, and 
infusing strength into the heart that receives 
it. Consolation, not soft and yielding, as the 
treacherous quicksands of earthly comfort: but 
firm, stable, - everlasting consolation/ like the 
immovable and imperishable rock. He who stands 
upon such a rock, seems to feel a portion of its 
firmness communicated to himself. His footing is 
sure. Consolation, derived from the promises of 
our reconciled God and Father, and applied by 
the Holy Spirit, is the strength of the soul. ' It 
strengthens the weak hands, and confirms the 
feeble knees. It is as a munition of rocks to the 
believer — a strong tower, wherein he feels himself 
to be safe. 

" The persons entitled to this strong consolation 
are again described to be those, ' who have fled 
for refuge to lay hold upon the hope set before them/ 
The image may be borrowed from the cities of 



HOPE THE SOUL'S ANCHOR. 285 

refuge, appointed by God for the shelter of those 
who might accidentally commit man-slaughter. 
Those cities were well-known; and the roads that 
conducted to them were straight, broad, and kept 
in good repair ; and the fugitives who fled thither 
from the avengers of blood, obtained within their 
walls a sure and certain hope of safety. But may 
not the comparison have another scene in view ? 
May it not be taken from the stormy sea? A 
tempest arises : the ocean is convulsed : the ele- 
ments seem to conspire the destruction of every 
thing within their reach. The alarmed mariners 
make for the harbour, and having arrived within 
its sheltering basin, they are secure. Or they 
have recourse to another expedient, as we read in 
the narrative of St. Paul's shipwreck : ' Then, 
fearing lest they should have fallen upon rocks, 
they cast four anchors out of the stern, and wished 
for the day.' This is the scene before us. Are 
we ourselves the subjects of the picture? Have 
we, alarmed by the terrors of the holy law of God, 
which we have violated, ' fled for refuge to the 
hope set before us ' in the gospel ? And can we 
truly and thankfully add, ' which hope we have 
as an anchor of the soul, both sure and 
steadfast'? 

" Faith, like the mariner's cable, lays hold upon 
the anchor of hope ; and hope, grasping some pro- 
jection of the rock, or entering into the firm bottom 



286 HOPE THE SOUL'S ANCHOR, 

of the sea, holds the vessel through the storm. 
Every wave and every blast may try the believer's 
feeble bark, but the strength of the anchor more 
than compensates for the weakness of the vessel. 
Faith and hope are the Christian's hold on Christ. 
All the tempests which may issue from the gates 
of hell can never unloose that hold, or avail to 
sink into perdition the frailest bark that navigates 
the sea of human life. 

" In the 18th verse, the Apostle seems to speak 
of the object of hope, as laid hold on by faith : 
and in the 1 9 th verse, of the grace of hope, as formed 
in the believing heart. This grace, supported in 
its exercise by the Holy Spirit of God, is to the 
soul as an anchor to the ship. The sight or men- 
tion of this nautical instrument, implies the possi- 
bility or existence of circumstances, in which it 
may be useful and even requisite. Am I driven 
by fierce tempests towards a lee shore, where 
inevitable destruction points every rock, while my 
vessel is no longer controllable by the helm ? Am 
I impetuously hurried by spiritual terrors towards 
despair, or towards those spiritual evils on which 
faith is liable to be shipwrecked ? What shall I 
do? To tack may be impossible. To remain 
stationary for even a moment is equally impossible. 
I must cast out my anchor of hope, to stay my 
vessel from her fatal course, and to retain her in 
safety, though in a state of agitation, till the storm 



HOPE THE SOUL'S ANCHOR. 287 

subsides. But even in port, while the mariners 
are attending to the lading or unlading of their 
ship, an anchor is necessary, that it may be kept 
in a steady posture. So, in the Christian life, 
the hope of the gospel is essential to my peace, 
that I may not, as St. Paul elsewhere expresses it, 
like children in little skiffs, over which they have 
no power, be tossed to and fro upon the mighty 
deep, and carried about with every wind of doc- 
trine. Amidst the outward storms of temporal 
affliction, and amidst the cares of worldly business, 
I greatly need this stay and support. The mariner 
lets down his anchor through the waves and dark*- 
ness of the ocean, by its cable, until it fixes itself 
below ; so our hope, let out, as it were, by the 
sure word of God, entereth into that wherein it 
fasteneth itself, and fixeth the soul. 

But we have heard of, and even seen instances 
of vessels breaking from their moorings, and being 
either cast away or driven out to sea. The cable 
I has given way ; or the fluke, or ring of the anchor, 
I has been broken ; or the anchor has lost its hold, 
and been dragged along the bottom. The faith, 
however, of the people of God is of divine work- 
manship, and will not fail. As to their hope, 
their anchor, it is sure and steadfast. The mate- 
rials are firm and durable. It cannot break. It 
is a hope that maketh not ashamed. It is not the 
alloyed anchor of the hypocrite, shining, but soft 



288 

and yielding. It is not the wooden log, or the 
bundle of straw, which are the only and the 
ruinous hopes of multitudes. But it is of solid and 
durable metal, firm and invincible against all that 
may assail it : not, indeed, so much from itself, as 
from the ground on which it fixes, namely, Christ 
in the promise. It entereth into that within the 
veil. As the holy of holies was concealed from 
the eye by the veil, and as the rock on which the 
anchor fastens is covered by the waves, so the 
hope of the believing soul embraces and holds 
fast an invisible Saviour. The vessel is still at 
the mercy of the winds and waves, until the 
anchor reaches and grapples the bottom. It can- 
not fasten in the yielding wave. So is the soul in 
a wavering, unsettled, and unsafe state, until its 
hope reaches and lays hold upon Jesus Christ our 
Lord. May our meditations upon this portion 
of the divine word have this blessed issue. 
Amen." 

The Vicar then offered up an appropriate 
prayer; after which the other hymn was sung, 
and the social and domestic congregation se- 
parated. 

HYMN. 

O how strong the consolation, 
God's unchanging love affords ! 



Heirs of promise, your salvation 
Hangs upon Jehovah's words : 
He can never 
Swerve from what his word records. 

Everlasting hills surrounding, 

Lo, your refuge opens wide ! 
There, through grace on grace abounding, 

Fearless of the ocean tide, 
Heirs of promise, 
You may evermore abide. 

Sooner shall the wild wave sever 
Alp from Alp, and dash the sky, 

Than Eternal Truth shall ever 
Oath-seal'd promises deny. 
Thine, believer, 

Is the God who cannot lie. 

Hope, on thy dear Lord depending, 

As the anchor holds the keel, 
When the universe is rending, 

Firm and steadfast, shall reveal 
How securely 
Thou art fix'd within the veil. 

The storm had been only of short duration, and 
had rolled majestically away below the horizon, 
while the moon, riding in calm triumph across the 
sky, smiled upon the path of those of the little 
assembly, who now separated and retired to their 
homes. How enviable were their feelings, and 



290 HOPE THE SOUL'S ANCHOR. 

how different from those experienced by " the 
children of this world," when they withdraw from 
scenes of Sabbath dissipation, or from society 
where God is forgotten, and the soul is undone ! 

The moon, meanwhile, o'er ocean's sombre bed, 
New ris'n, a thousand glow-worm lights had spread; 
From east to west the wildfire splendours glance, 
And all the billows in her glory dance ; 
'Till, in mid-heav'n, her orb might seem the eye 
Of Providence, wide- watching from the sky, 
While nature slumbers ; — emblem of His grace, 
Whose presence fills the infinite of space. 

Montgomery. 






CHAPTER XXIII 



THE DEPTHS CONGEALED. 



The afternoon of Monday was allotted to a walk 
upon the sands, which a neap-tide had left far and 
long uncovered. This circumstance gave a 
favourable and safe opportunity for the party to 
cross upon a natural cause-way of shingles to a 
small island, which the retreat of the waters now 
left accessible. After a short time given to an 
examination of this little spot, Charles Willoughby 
proposed, that they should seat themselves as con- 
veniently as they could, and that he might be 
allowed to request Miss Hamilton to favour them 
with a paper, which, he understood, had engaged 
her thoughts and pen in the morning. Louisa 
read her production. 

THE DEPTHS CONGEALED. 

" The Arab guide, as he conducts the traveller 
along the sacredly classic shores of the Red Sea, 
points to the spot, where tradition, corroborating 



292 THE DEPTHS GONGEALED. 

the records of Moses, keeps up the remembrance 
of the miraculous passage of the Israelites. Those 
shores, indeed, are now most desolate and silent; 
and but seldom does the mariner disturb the shal- 
low waters, which, perhaps at the very part where 
' the floods stood upright as an heap, and the 
depths were congealed in the heart of the sea/ 
scarcely wet s the knees of the pilgrim's camel. 
The coralline rocks and the African sands have 
greatly contracted the north-western gulf of the 
Red Sea. 

" I had been reading the account, M written by 
the meek man of God, of those remarkable trans- 
actions, of which he was an eye-witness, and in 
which he acted a conspicuous part. My imagi- 
nation was strongly excited by the narrative, and, 
taking the Sacred Volume in my hand, I directed 
my steps towards the shore, to ponder over the 
story of ages past, and to con the lessons which 
it taught. An arm of the sea, two or three leagues 
in breadth, ran far inland, and I took my medita- 
tive course along its beach. In magnitude, it 
probably corresponded with the gulf passed by 
the ransomed Israelites ; but in other respects it was 
strikingly different. Woodlands, diversified with 
hill and dale, skirted its opposite coast, and ex- 
tended to the horizon their dark green undulations, 



Exod. 



THE DEPTHS CONGEALED. 293 

which were distinctly reflected on the calm waters. 
Two rivers poured their tributary streams into the 
gulf, and the intervening land was richly culti- 
vated by the plough, and adorned with a neat, 
populous town, and many elegant villas. Very 
different was the scene presented to the Israelitish 
multitude, when they took up their station before 
Pihahiroth. 35 That was a wilderness, in whose 
labyrinths their merciless foe congratulated himself 
that they were entangled, and that he should make 
them an easy prey. The surrounding regions, 
even at that time, seem to have been marked with 
a peculiarly barren aspect, so that the Israelites 
frequently made a doleful contrast between 
them and the well watered and fruitful fields of 
Egypt. 

" Oh ! what a cry ascended from the fugitive 
myriads of Israel, when they found themselves 
as it were entangled in the toils of their enemy : 
— a cry scarcely exceeded by that, which had 
recently filled the whole land' of Egypt, on the 
death of the first-born. The distant moun- 



35 Or Pi-hachipoth, t':e mouth of Chiroth, as it is rendered in 
the Septuagint. Dr. Shaw, the traveller, is of opinion, that Chiroth 
denotes the valley which extends from the valley of Etham to the 
Red Sea. " This valley he observes, ends at the sea in a small bay, 
made by the earLhern extremities of the mountains — and is called 
Tiah-beni-Israel, i. e. the road of the Israelites, by a tradition that is 
still kept up by the Arabs, of their having passed through it." 
Bagster's Comprehensive Bible. 



294 THE DEPTHS CONGEALED. 

tains must have echoed it back over the waves, 
and the nearer heights and valleys must have 
conveyed the sound to the Egyptians, and elicited 
from them a shout of anticipated triumph. Their 
situation reminded me of the well-known and 
pitiable condition and complaint of the ancient 
Britons, when their Roman masters, who had 
taught them every thing but the art of war and of 
self-protection, abandoned them to the invasion 
of new foes. The British ambassadors carried to 
Rome the letter of their countrymen, which was 
inscribed, ' The groans of the Britons.' The 
tenor of the epistle was suitable to this superscrip- 
tion. ' The barbarians (say they,) on the one 
hand, chase us into the sea ; the sea, on the other, 
throws us back upon the barbarians ; and we have 
only the hard choice left us, of perishing by the 
sword, or by the waves.' 36 

" But how safe are they, who are where God 
would have them to be. The children of Abraham 
had quitted the land of their oppressors at the 
divine bidding, and they were now encamped on 
the identical spot, to which God had directed 
them, a spot widely out of the road which they 
would naturally have chosen to conduct them to 
the promised land. Yet, how mixed and imper- 
fect was their piety ! They loudly complained 

i6 Hume's Histcry of Ecglard. 



THE DEPTHS CONGEALED. 295 

against their generous leader, and regretted that 
they had left the house of bondage. They had 
rather live and groan under the scourge of an 
ignoble and oppressive slavery, than die by the 
sword of war. What astonishing forbearance on 
the part of God ! * Fear ye not, stand still, and 
see the salvation of the Lord, which he will show 
you to-day : for the Egyptians whom ye have 
seen to-day, ye shall see them again no more for 
ever. The Lord shall fight for you, and ye shall 
hold your peace.' 37 Their murmurs were now 
silenced, if their fears were not dissipated. They 
looked at the sea and paused upon its verge. 
They gave a glance of tacit apprehension to the 
Egyptian host, and it was to be the last. Yet, a 
few hours, and the Egyptians were to be no more. 
They were to ask no questions, such as curiosity 
or unbelief might suggest. This was to silence 
all. ' The Lord shall fight for you, and ye shall 
hold your peace.' The Israelites might not seem 
more fully destined to utter ruin than their adver- 
saries to perfect triumph. But the former were 
looking through self-despair to their God ; while 
the latter were self-deluded and judicially har- 
dened. The trembling heart of the Israelite yet 
hoped in Jehovah. The hardened heart of the 
Egyptian had no confidence beyond itself and its 

37 Exodus xiv. 13, 14. 



296 



THE DEPTHS CONGEALED. 



false idols. A child of God, through the weakness 
and imperfection of his faith, and through his 
defective insight into the results which are wrapped 
up in futurity, may sometimes appear to little ad- 
vantage by the side of a man of this world. But 
the Christian's fears are connected with a state of 
safety. The worldling's hardihood is associated 
with tremendous peril. The timidity of the one, 
however, as well as the carnal and false security 
of the other, may conceal from h,im his real situa- 
tion. Holy fear clings to an unfailing rock, like 
the tenacious shell-fish. Unholy audacity treads 
upon a yielding wave, which may soon give way 
and ingulf the soul for ever. 

" But prayer and simple faith are not to super- 
sede, but rather to stimulate human effort, when 
the time for action arrives. For it has been fre- 
quently and well observed, that prayer without 
exertion is presumption, while exertion without 
prayer is atheism. We have a memorable instance 
of this, taught us by Jehovah himself, on the shore 
of the Red Sea. 'The Lord said unto Moses, 
Wherefore criest thou unto me ? speak unto the 
children of Israel that they go forward : but 
lift thou up thy rod, and stretch out thy hand over 
the sea, and divide it : and the children of Israel 
shall so on dry ground through the midst of the 
sea.' 

" What means that sudden movement in the 



THE DEPTHS CONGEALED. 297 

heavens ? It is the angel of God changing the 
place of his encampment. Till this hour he has 
led the march. Now he retires, and forms the 
rereward of the trembling host. ' The pillar of the 
cloud went from before their face, and stood 
behind them : and it came between the camp of 
the Egyptians and the camp of Israel ; and it was 
a cloud and darkness to them, but it gave light 
by night to those : so that the one came not near 
the other all the night/ The evening shades were 
advancing from the further shore, when Moses, 
by the command of God, ' stretched out his hand 
over the sea, and the Lord caused the sea to go 
back by a strong east wind all that night, and 
made the sea dry land, and the waters were 
divided. And the children of Israel went into 
the midst of the sea upon the dry ground : and 
the waters were a wall unto them, on their right 
hand and on their left.' Thus ' the depths were 
congealed in the heart of the sea.' The solemnity 
of night added awe to the scene, the grandeur of 
which, exhibiting the passage of two millions of 
people through the divided sea, can be but feebly 
pictured by the imagination. They passed and 
safely trod the path of miracle. Their foe, instead 
of being struck dumb with amazement, or pros- 
trate in adoration of the irresistible Jehovah, 
infatuated to his ruin, rushed to the pursuit. The 
emancipated host had just reached the opposite 
o 2 



598 THE DEPTHS CONGEALED. 

shore, and the last band of their pursuers had 
iust entered the awful o-ao, when a look from 
Jehovah through the pillar of fire and of the cloud, 
threw the armies of the Egyptians into confusion. 
Then Moses, by divine command, stretched out 
the wonder-working rod ; the sea returned to his 
strength ; and the beams of returning day shone 
upon a shore strewn with the corpses of the mul- 
titudes of Mizraim. 

" Then sang Moses that song, which ever since 
has borne his name, and the whole throng united 
with him in full chorus. This grand event in 
their history afterwards became a favourite theme 
with successive Jewish bards, who celebrated it in 
all the pomp and richness of eastern poetry. That 
ode of Moses has often since been taken up by 
the church in her days of triumph and deliverance, 
and in the prophetic visions of St. John we are 
taught to expect, that it will hereafter be used 
with even more than its primitive force and pro- 
priety. ' And I saw another sign in heaven, 
great and marvellous, seven angels having the 
seven last plagues ; for in them is filled up the 
wrath of God. And I saw, as it were, a sea of 
glass mingled with fire : and them that had gotten 
the victory over the beast, and over his image, and 
over his mark, and over the number of his name, 
stand on the sea of glass, having the harps of God. 
And they sing the song of Moses the servant of 



THE DEPTHS CONGEALED. 299 

God, and the song of the Lamb, saying, Great and 
marvellous are thy works, Lord God Almighty ; 
just and true are thy ways, thou King of Saints. 
Who shall not fear thee, O Lord, and glorify thy 
name ? for thou only art holy : for all nations shall 
come and worship before thee ; for thy judgments 
are made manifest.' 

" I now turned to many of the sublime and in- 
structive portions of the divine word, which refer 
to, or commemorate the event, particularly the 74th, 
77th, 78th, and 114th Psalms ; and when I reached 
home, T took down Bishop Hall's Contemplations, 
but, as much to my surprise as regret, found that 
he had passed over this most memorable transac- 
tion, in a very brief and cursory manner, saying- 
little more upon it than what follows. 

" ' He was a bold Israelite that set the first 
foot in the channel of the sea ; and every step that 
they set in that moist way was a new exercise of 
their faith. Pharaoh sees all this, and wonders ; 
yet hath not the wit or grace to think, (though 
the pillar tell him so much) that God made a dif- 
ference betwixt him and Israel. He is offended 
with the sea, for giving way to his enemies, and 
yet sees not why he may not trust it as well as 
they. He might well have thought, that he which 
gave light in Goshen, when there was darkness 
in Egypt, could as well distinguish in the sea ; 
but he cannot now either consider, or fear ; it is 



300 THE DEPTHS CONGEALED. 

his time to perish. God makes him fair way, and 
lets him run smoothly on till he be come to the 
midst of the sea ; not one wave may rise up against 
him, to wet so much as the hoof of his horse. 
Extraordinary favours to wicked men are the 
forerunners of their ruin. ISTow, when God sees 
the Egyptians too far to return, he finds time to 
strike them with their last terror. They know 
not why, but they would return, too late. Those 
chariots, in which th^y trusted, now fail them ; 
as having done service enough, to carry them into 
perdition. God pursues them, and they cannot 
flee from him. Wicked men make equal haste 
both to sin, and from judgment: but they shall 
one day find, that it is not more easy to run into 
sin, than impossible to run away from judgment. 
The sea will show them, that it regards the rod of 
Moses, not the sceptre of Pharoah ; and now, as 
glad to have got the enemies of God at such an ad- 
vantage, shuts her mouth upon them, and swallows 
them up in her waves ; and, after she hath made 
sport with them awhile, casts them upon her sand, 
for a spectacle of triumph to their adversaries. 

" ' What a sight was this to the Israelites, 
when they were now safe on the shore, to see 
their enemies come floating after them upon the 
billows, and to find among the carcases upon the 
sand, their- know r n oppressors, which they can now 
tread on with insultation ! They did not cry more 



" 



THE DEPTHS CONGEALED. 301 

loud before, than now they sing. Not their faith, 
but their sense teaches them now to magnify that 
God, after their deliverance, whom they hardly 
trusted for their deliverance.' " 

" Being aware of the subject of my sister's 
paper," said Pascal, ' I this morning made an 
extract from one of our Oxford Prize Poems. It 
was written by Matthew Rolleston, on whose lips, 
when he entered the sacred ministry, and was ap- 
pointed a University Preacher, as I have often 
heard from my seniors, overflowing congregations 
used to hang, charmed by the energy of his elo- 
quence, though it lay under the restraint and 
disadvantage of much corporeal infirmity, and by 
the fervour of his piety, which, when on one 
occasion he preached on the Standard of Primitive 
Christianity, appeared like the mantle of St. 
Stephen investing the preacher. He died in the 
prime of his years, in humble and simple faith, 
looking for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ 
unto eternal life. 

'Tis past — that hour of death ! the eye of light „ 
On its own tow'rs ™ looks down, in glory bright : 
Yet ne'er on host so vast its golden beam. 
Waking, has shone, as now, with mighty stream 
Of mingled man and herd, from Goshen's land 
Pours frequent forth, a more than locust band. 

38 Memphis. 



302 



THE DEPTHS CONGEALED. 



They go ; but all is silent as the tomb — 
For look ! where, column'd high in massy gloom, 
Deep as the darkness of the coming storm, 
Moves slow before the host a giant-form ; 
And see, as all the twilight landscape fades, 
A pale and dubious light the mass pervades, 
And as the night rolls on, the wondrous frame 
Pours a broad glare, and brightens into flame : 
Tis not the beacon fire, which wakes from far 
The wand'ring sons of rapine and of war ; 
'Tis not of night's fair lamp the silv'ry beam, 
Nor the quick darting meteor's angry gleam ; 
No ! 'tis the pillar'd cloud, " the torch of heav'n," 
Pledge of the present God, by mercy giv'n ; 
The sacred boon, by Providence supplied, 
By day to cover, and by night to guide. 
And He, the great, th' eternal Lord, whose might 
All being owns, who spake, and there was light, 
Who gave the Sun the tow'r of day to keep, 
And the pale Moon to watch o'er nature's sleep, 
He, present still, shall aid, shall safety yield, 
Thy lamp by night, by day thy guide and shield. 

Not such their trust, when, by the Red Sea flood, 
Trembling and faint, th' affrighted myriads stood ; 
When war foam'd fierce behind, and from the 

wave 
Despair, dark frowning, yell'd, " Behold thy grave!" 
When, spurr'd to insult rude, th' impatient crowd 
Chid the meek man of God, and murmur'd loud : 
" Was it for this, that Nile's obedient flood 
Roll'd, at thy word, a sea of death and blood ? 
For this, to life did every sand-grain spring, 
And famine lurk beneath the insect's wino- ? 






THE DEPTHS CONGEALED. 303 

Was it for this, the Sun forgat to rise, 
And midnight darkness veil'd the noonday skies ? 
Or when, high-borne upon the sweeping blast, 
Th' avenging Spirit of Destruction pass'd, 
And dealt, with viewless arm, that mortal blow, 
Which laid the blooming hopes of Egypt low ; 
Was it for this the frowning Seraph stay'd 
The fiery vengeance of his deathful blade ; 
Bent on the hallow'd blood his alter'd eye, 
Own'd mercy's pledge, and pass'd innocuous by ; 
And spar'd us, but to glut the savage sword, 
Or groan once more beneath a tyrant lord?" 

Peace, impious doubts ! rebellious murmurs, hence ! 
Mark the rais'd wand, and trust Omnipotence! — 
'Tis done, obedient to the high decree 
Wave parts from wave, and sea rolls back from sea ; 
'Till, sudden check'd as by the wintry hand 
Of the stern north, the solid waters stand. 
The pillar'd flames, while gathering darkness falls, 
Shed passing radiance on the crystal walls ; 
And now those caves, where dwelt primeval night, 
Drink the warm spirit of the orient light ; 
Swift through th' abyss the pure effulgence flies, 
And earth's foundations burst on human eyes. 

But see ! where Egypt comes ! with steed and car, 
And thousands panting for the spoils of war ; 
Bold waves her plume, and proud her banners gleam, 
As now they bask'd in vict'ry's golden beam ; 
The war-trump speaks ; maddening she spurns the 

shores, 
And through the yawning surges headlong pours. 

But where is Egypt now ? Where all her might," 
Her steeds, her cars, her thousands arm'd for fight ? 



304 THE DEPTHS CONGEALED. 

Where is the banner' cl pride that wav'd so high ? 
And where the trump that told of victory ? 
All, all are past ; the chain'd and fetter'd deep, 
Loos'd from its bonds, at one tremendous sweep 
Whelm'd all their hopes, and not a wreck is seen, 
To tell to future times that they had been. — 
And thou, infatuate Prince, of stubborn mould, 
Aw'd by no terrors, by no pow'r controll'd ! 
Hast thou too felt that arm thy soul defied ? 
How is thy glory fall'n ! how chang'd thy pride ! 
For hope had fondly deem'd thy death-cold clay 
Should mock corruption's worm, nor know decay ; 
But ne'er thy scatter'd bones shall now be hid 
In the dark bed of thy proud pyramid : 
But thou, vain boaster, and thy meanest slave, 
Alike must glut the monsters of the wave. 

" Have I not heard it suggested/' asked Edwin, 
" that the passage of the Red Sea may have been 
effected at a time when the waters of the gulph 
had retreated through natural, though extraor- 
dinary causes ? " 

" I am always pleased to hear and to answer 
the inquiries of the young on these topics," replied 
the Vicar, " for our great enemy is very ready to 
take advantage of smothered and unanswered 
doubts, to harass the mind with sceptical thoughts, 
and supposed difficulties. It is very true, that 
natural events have occurred, bearing a resem- 
blance to the division of the Red Sea, and of the 
river Jordan. For instance, Dr. E. D. Clarke 



THE DEPTHS CONGEALED. 305 

states, that ' a remarkable phenomenon occurs in 
the sea of Azof, during violent east winds : the 
sea retires in so singular a manner, that the people 
of Taganrof are able to effect a passage upon dry 
land to the opposite coast, a distance of twenty 
versts, equal to fourteen miles ; but when the 
wind changes, and this it does sometimes very 
suddenly, the waters return with such rapidity to 
their wonted bed, that many lives are lost. The 
depth here is five fathoms.' For the Israelites 
to have arrived and passed at such a juncture, 
would, indeed, have been a wonderful illustration 
and instance of the peculiar providence which 
watched over them : but the retreat of the waters 
would have been no miracle. As a miraculous 
interference of the God of nature, and the God of 
Israel, it is constantly referred to in the Sacred 
Volume. Its instantaneous occurrence at the out- 
stretching of the Prophet's rod, was calculated to 
impress the minds of the people with its directly 
miraculous character, and the whole narrative 
itself forcibly implies that it was a miracle, par- 
ticularly where it is stated that ' the waters were 
a wall unto them, on their right hand and on their 
left/ which could not have been the case under 
any merely natural and material agency. A strong 
wind, indeed, is said to have been employed ; but, 
then, let it be observed, that, according to the 
analogy of similar natural phenomena, it would 



306 THE DEPTHS CONGEALED. 

have been a north wind, forcing the sea south- 
ward down the gulph, and leaving the upper part 
dry ; whereas this was an east wind, which seems 
miraculously to have ploughed a passage through 
the sea, and left the waters on either side ap- 
parently ' congealed.' But the humble pupil of 
Revelation, in his inquiries into subjects of this 
character, will do well to ask rather by whom, 
than by what means, events were brought about. 
— But it is time that we should return, lest the 
tide should intercept our retreat. " 

" But, dear papa," said Julia, " if you think 
that we may take ten minutes more, with your 
approbation, we may sing Dr. Watts's beautiful 
hymn." 

The Vicar assented, and the whole party sang 
the hymn, to the tune of the Old Hundredth 
Psalm. 

GOD'S DOMINION OVER THE SEA. 



God of the seas, thy thund'ring voice 
Makes all the roaring waves rejoice ! 
And one soft word of thy command 
Can sink them silent in the sand. 

If but a Moses wave thy rod, 
The sea divides and owns its God ; 
The stormy floods their Maker knew, 
And let his chosen armies through. 



THE DEPTHS CONGEALED. 307 

The scaly flocks amidst the sea, 
To thee, their Lord, a tribute pay ; 
The meanest fish that swims the flood, 
Leaps up, and means a praise to God. 

The larger monsters of the deep, 
On thy commands attendance keep ; 
By thy permission sport and play, 
And cleave along their foaming- way. 

If God his voice of tempest rears, 
Leviathan lies still and fears ; 
Anon he lifts his nostrils high, 
And spouts the ocean to the sky. 

How is thy glorious pow'r ador'd, 
Amidst these wat'ry nations, Lord I 
Yet the bold men that trace the seas, 
Bold men, refuse their Maker's praise. 

What scenes of miracle they see, 

And never tune a song to thee ! 

While on the flood they safely ride, 

They curse the hand that smooths the tide, 

Anon they plunge in wat'ry graves, 
And some drink death among the waves : 
Yet the surviving crew blaspheme, 
Nor own the God that rescu'd them. 

O, for some signal of thine hand ! 
Shake all the seas, Lord, shake the land : 
Great Judge, descend, lest men deny 
That there's a God that rules the sky. 






CHAPTER XXIV. 



THE SEA PILGRIM. 



On Tuesday evening, the two families met at 
Mr. Willoughby's. It was cold, and they gladly 
indulged in the early and ever-acceptable luxury 
of an autumnal fire-side. While sitting in their 
social circle, Miss Willoughby said, " I take some 
little shame to myself for the scantiness of my 
contributions — or rather contribution, for I have 
brought forward only one article— to the stock of 
general improvement and entertainment, according 
to the plan of our revered friend. Nor have I now 
any thing original to produce. But, in looking 
over the album of a friend, on whom I called this 
morning, I read, and, by her permission, copied a 
little piece, which will more than compensate for 
my lack of service. It was in the hand-writing 



THE SEA PILGRIM. 309 

of the venerable author. In the absence of any 
title from its commencement, I will style it 

THE SEA PILGRIM. 



" My dear Madam, 
" As I find that a vague report has reached 
you, of the merciful deliverance which I have ex- 
perienced ; I conclude, from the friendship with 
which you have favoured me, that you are anxious 
to know the particulars of the story. 

" You need not to be informed of my early 
designation to a sea-faring life, nor of my deter- 
mination of taking a voyage to a very distant 
I region. Alas, I thought little of the dangers to 
j which I might be exposed, or of the risk I ran ! 
, I had never seen the mountainous wave, nor heard 
\ the rending howl of the tempest. And though I 
, had read of the perils in which others had been 
, involved, I foolishly thought, that with respect to 
i my own voyage, the wind would be always fair, 
I and the ocean calm. A painted storm differs 
widely from a real one. May my painful experience 
•be a warning to others. 

" Not to weary you with mure previous remark, 
I proceed to inform you, that I took my passage 
on board the Sufficiency, Captain Self, a man 
who pretended to be well skilled in the science of 
navigation, and frequently became the panegyrist 



310 THE SEA. PILGRIM. 

of his bark, which he described as a very fast 
sailor, and as proof against wind and weather. 
His crew, according to his account of them, were 
picked hands, who had often made the voyage in 
which we were engaged ; his charts were the most 
accurate and comprehensive ; and his masts and 
rigging in the finest order. 

" All this I have since found to be untrue, 
and therefore charitably seize this opportunity of 
cautioning; those who venture themselves on the 
great deep, to investigate carefully the captain 
with whom they trust themselves, and the ma- 
terials of the vessel in which they embark. The 
Sufficiency, as I have now discovered, was 
built, not of British oak, but of a soft kind of 
timber, hewn from the forest of Pride, remark- 
able for its defect, both of strength and durability. 
There was not, it seems, a single bolt of iron in 
the whole fabric ; but the planks were fastened to 
ribs of the same wood, and to each other by pins, 
cut from the same tree. And, had they not been 
secured from the effects of the weather by a thin 
covering of paint, which rendered the contour of 
the ship very tawdry, they would scarcely have 
held together till we were out of port. The Cap- 
tain, in the course of the voyage, gave sufficient 
proof of his ignorance, both of the course we were 
to take, and of the management of the ship. He 
steered at random, without a compass ; for he 



THE SEA PILGRIM. 311 

forgot, or, through conceit, neglected to take one 
with him. Neither himself nor his crew had ever 
reached the port to which we were bound ; but 
had always been obliged to return thither, from 
whence they sailed, disappointed and confounded 
His ship was wholly without ballast, while the 
masts were disproportionally lofty, and the sails 
unreasonably large. The ropes, instead of being 
fabricated of tough hemp, were manufactured of 
rushes, that grow in the swamp of Moral De- 
cency. To all this may be added, that the vessel 
itself, and all her apparatus, were so old as to 
be quite rotten ; being the very same in which 
Captain Adam once attempted to make the voyage, 
and failed of attaining his object. The history of 
his disappointment I need not recall to your 
recollection, since you have so often read the 
affecting narrative, drawn up by the pen of Moses ; 
who has by some persons been considered as the 
builder of the ship, but who, as appears by his 
own account, had no hand in it. Indeed, it had 
been in use long before he was born. 

" From the account which I have given of my 
ship and its commander, you will not wonder 
when informed of the catastrophe which ensued. 
As we sailed from the port of Nature, the place 
of my birth, parentage, and education, I was 
hailed by my old companions, in a manner that 
showed the sanguine hopes they entertained of 



312 THE SEA PILGRIM. 

my success, by an acquisition of the object in 
view : viz. the opulence of the country to which I 
was going. Our ensign streamed in the wind ; 
our sails were filled with a prosperous breeze ; and 
our hearts exulted in the prospect of an advan- 
tageous expedition. 

" We made, however, but little progress, before 
the scene awfully changed. A boisterous wind, 
called by the navigators of those seas, Convic- 
tion, arose; compared with which, St. Paul's 
Euroclydon was a gentle zephyr. We, moreover, 
got into a place, in those parts, called the straits 
of Tribulation, where two seas met, and the 
waves ran mountains high. Here we were tossed 
to and fro, and reeled like a drunken man, and 
were at our wits' end. We were carried up to 
heaven, and then down again to the deep, and 
our hearts failed because of the trouble. Our 
Captain lost all his false confidence, and acknow- 
ledged that he knew not where he was, or what to 
do. Our charts afforded us no direction, and the 
whole crew were so benumbed with the cold, that 
they were incapacitated to handle the sails, or to 
assist in the management of the ship. Neither 
sun nor stars appeared for many days, and all 
hope that we should be saved was taken away 
from us. 

" Our ship was now at the mercy of the waves, 
and our lives in the most imminent danger. Judge, 



THE SEA PILGRIM. 313 

my friend, if you can, (but it is impossible, unless 
you had been in similar circumstances,) what 
were my feelings, as I lay in my birth, night after 
night ; for nature demanded refreshment in a tone 
too peremptory to be resisted ; and besides, my 
continuance upon deck appeared useless, since I 
could do nothing to promote a deliverance. Judge 
what were my feelings, when, every moment, 
some part of the rigging gave way, with a crash 
that harrowed up my very soul ; and the rotten 
planks were starting from their ribs. After some 
time, we were obliged to throw overboard all the 
lading of the ship with our own hands, which 
consisted of a kind of merchandize called Human 
Merits ; and which I had laid up for the purpose 
of barter with the king of the country to which 
we were bound, and whereby I hoped to obtain an 
immense profit. This sacrifice of my all cost me 
much affliction. But to avoid it was impossible. 
Had I then known what I have since discovered, 
that my supposed goods were all marred and 
rotten, and absolutely worthless, I should have 
felt no pain in the loss of them. 

" A thought at length struck into the Captain's 
head, which afforded us .a momentary gleam of 
hope; but alas, it was hope unfounded. Here- 
collected that before he set sail, he had been 
recommended by a shipwright, called Mr. Legal 
Repentance, to take with him, in case of an 



314 THE SEA PILGRIM. 

accident, (which, however, was considered to be 
very improbable,) some ropes, made in the manu- 
factory of Mr. Reformation, wherewith the 
ship, should a violent storm endanger her safety, 
might be undergirded and kept together. It was 
now therefore proposed to make use of these ropes, 
and the proposal was immediately carried into 
execution. But, alas ! these ropes were made of 
the same frail materials as the rigging, and, on 
the first reel of the ship, snapped asunder. This 
failing, we yet tried another experiment. We had 
on board a kind of pitch, or cement, celebrated for 
stopping leaks. This, therefore, we applied to 
the seams, which now copiously admitted water 
into the hold. But though this cement is truly 
valuable, when judiciously made, ours, alas ! was 
good for nothing ; since the principal ingredient 
in its composition was omitted, and another, of no 
use, substituted in its stead. When properly ma- 
nufactured, it is called Godly Sorrow, and is 
only sold at the warehouse of Mr. Grace. Ours 
was a composition, called Worldly Sorrow, 
vended by Mr. Fear. This scheme, therefore, 
proved abortive, like the former, the cement being 
washed off as fast as we laid it on. 

" Not to weary you with a recital of other vain 
expedients to which we had recourse, I hasten to 
tell you, that the storm increased in violence ; and 
that in a short time the Sufficiency was dashed 



THE SEA PILGRIM. 315 

in a thousand pieces, so that no two planks held 
together. Captain Self, and every individual of 
his crew, were instantly drowned ; and I only am 
left, a miracle of divine mercy ! 

" How I escaped, you shall now hear ; and I 
am sure you will not hear it, without joining your 
friend, in an adoration of that all-gracious Being, 
to whom I owe my life, and all its comforts. On 
the destruction of the ship, I found myself in the 
midst of the waves, and, as you may suppose, 
despaired of any escape. Death, in all its terrors, 
stared me in the face. The darkness of the night 
added to the horrors of my situation. But I had 
not been long in this state, before the morning 
light dawned, and I descried near me a Rock, 
which was raised above the swelling flood, and 
promised me a place of security, if I could reach 
it. But here lay the difficulty ; I was so exhausted 
and weak, that I had no power to struggle with 
the waves, and when, once or twice I touched the 
friendly shore, and tried to grasp some prominent 
part of the Rock, I was washed off again. At 
length, however, when I found it impossible to 
save myself, the waves being so violent, and the 
ascent so steep, I was constrained to cry out for 
help to Him, who stilleth the raging of the sea : a 
friendly hand was held out to me ; I tried to lay 
hold of it, but was unable ; when, with a strength 
more than human, it laid hold of me, lifted me 



316 THE SEA PILGRIM. 

out of the water, and lodged me on the Rock of 
security. 

" You may suppose, that I was no sooner re- 
covered from the state of exhaustion in which I 
was left, than I began to inquire after the name 
of my deliverer, and the place where I was, and 
to return him my warmest thanks. He informed 
me that his name was Paraclete, and that 
the Rock, on which I was placed, was called, 
Jehovah Tsuri; and that it was his constant 
employment to assist those, who, venturing as I 
had done, were frequently wrecked in those seas. 
You may suppose that, in transports of joy and 
gratitude, I kissed the Rock, and adored Him 
who had set me on it. After employing some 
time in this manner, I recollected the companions 
of my voyage, and began to look around me to see 
if any of them had escaped. But they were all sunk, 
like lead, in the mighty waters ; and considering 
the manner in which they had deceived me, I can- 
not say that I regret their destruction. 

*' I am still sore with the bruises I received, 
while I was the sport of the angry waves. But 
my gracious friend, before mentioned, has given me 
a cordial, called ' Gvttm Sanguinis Christi/ 
which he assures me will, ere long, effect my 
restoration to health and soundness. And, indeed, 
I begin already to experience their virtue. My 
time is here spent in a very comfortable manner, 



THE SEA PILGRIM. 317 

being in perfect security ' from fear of evil/ and 
enjoying the company of my kind deliverer. His 
conversation makes me wise, while his smile fills 
my heart with joy. And he has promised that his 
own ship, which is called Salvation, shall soon 
arrive, and waft me safely to the haven where I 
would be. 

" Thus, my dear Madam, have I given you my 
history. If you think it may be of use to others, 
navigating these seas, you are welcome to com- 
municate it. And all I request of you, in return 
for my trouble in affording you this long detail, is 
an interest in your prayers, that my heart may be 
more and more filled with gratitude, till faith is 
changed for sight, and hope for fruition. 

" I am, 

Very truly, your's, 

T. T. B." 

Mrs. Hamilton remarked, "The subject of this 
allegorical piece reminds me of poor Cowper's 
Castaway, which, by way of contrast, and to 
excite our gratitude to the Saviour, that we are 
not left a prey, either to our own fears and un- 
belief, or to a disordered intellect, I will request 
one of our party to read." 



318 THE SEA PILGRIM. 

Edwin immediately brought the third volume of 
Cowper's poems, and read 

THE CASTAWAY. 

Obscurest night involv'd the sky, 

Th' Atlantic billows roar'd, 
When such a destin'd wretch as I, 

Wash'd headlong- from on board, 
Of friends, of hope, of all bereft, 
His floating home for ever left. 

No braver chief could Albion boast, 

Than he with whom he went ; 
Nor ever ship left Albion's coast, 

With warmer wishes sent : 
He lov'd them both, but both in vain, 
Nor him beheld, nor her again. 

Not long beneath the whelming brine, 

Expert to swim, he lay ; 
Nor soon he felt his strength decline, 

Or courage die away ; 
But wag'd with death a lasting strife, 
Supported by despair of life. 

He shouted ; nor his friends had fail'd 

To check the vessel's course ; 
But so the furious blast prevail'd, 

That, pitiless, perforce, 
They left their outcast mate behind, 
And scudded still before the wind. 



THE SEA PILGRIM. 319 

Some succour yet they could afford ; 

And, such as storms allow, 
The cask, the coop, the floated cord, 

Delay'd not to bestow, 
But he (they knew) nor ship, nor shore, 
Whate'er they gave, should visit more. 

Nor, cruel as it seem'd, could he 

Their haste himself condemn, 
Aware that flight in such a sea, 

Alone could rescue them ; 
Yet bitter felt it still to die 
Deserted, and his friends so nigh. 

He long- survives, who lives an hour 

In ocean, self-upheld ; 
And so long he, with unspent pow'r, 

His destiny repell'd : 
And ever as the minutes flew, 
Entreated help, or cried — ' Adieu ! ' 

At length, his transient respite past, 

His comrades, who before 
Had heard his voice in ev'ry blast, 

Could catch the sound no more : 
For then, by toil subdued, he drank 
The stifling wave, and then he sank. 

No poet wept him : but the page 

Of narrative sincere. 
That tells his name, his worth, his age, 

Is wet with Anson's tear : 
And tears by bards or heroes shed, 
Alike immortalize the dead. 



320 THE SEA PILGRIM. 

I therefore purpose not, or dream , 
Descanting on his fate, 

To give the melancholy theme 
A more enduring date : 

But misery still delights to trace 

Its semblance in another's case. 

No voice divine the storm allay 'd, 
No light propitious shone ; 

When, snatch'd from all effectual aid. 
We perish'd, each alone : 

But I beneath a rougher sea, 

And whelm'd in deeper gulf than he. 



" I never before," observed Mr. Willoughby, 
" so distinctly traced the lineaments of Cowper's 
mental distress, drawn by his own hand, in this 
memorable poem. May it please divine mercy 
ever to uphold and preserve our intellectual fa- 
culties from that deplorable prostration, which 
physically incapacitates the mind from inferring 
right conclusions from right premises ; and ever 
to sustain our faith and hope, in all the childlike 
simplicity of fiducial reliance upon the promises of 
God, given to us in his dear Son. Let each of us 
watch and pray, lest he should be ' a castaway :' 
but at the same time, ' embrace, and ever hold 
fast the blessed hope/ founded upon Jehovah's 
assurance, ' I will never leave thee, nor forsake 
thee.' 



THE SEA PILGRIM. 321 

" Nineteen years before he penned The Cast- 
away, Cowper expressed himself in similarly 
desponding language, in what he wrote 

To the Rev. John Newton, on his return from 
Ramsgate. 

That ocean you have late survey'd, 

Those rocks, I too have seen ; 
But I, afflicted and dismay'd ; 

You, tranquil and serene. 

You, from the flood-controlling steep, 
Saw stretch'd before your view, 

With conscious joy, the threat'ning deep, 
No longer such to you. 

To me, the waves, that ceaseless broke 

Upon the dangerous coast, 
Hoarsely and ominously spoke 

Of all my treasure lost. 

Your sea of troubles you have past, 

And found the peaceful shore ; 
I, tempest-toss'd, and wreck'd at last, 

Come home to port no more." 



p2 



CHAPTER XXV. 



THE SANDS. 



. 



The Hamiltons had arranged with their friends, 
to give up the whole of Thursday morning to a 
ramble along the sands. As soon, therefore, as 
the sea had sufficiently ebbed, and the sun had 
dried the shore, they set out on their walk, agree- 
ing to proceed as far as their strength and the 
tide and coast would allow, and then to be met by 
two carriages and return by the inland road. 
They were at no loss for interesting and profitable 
topics of conversation, environed as they were 
with objects of which they were enthusiastically 
fond, and which were connected in their minds, 
with all that is gratifying to a refined, intellectual 
taste, and all that is impressive to a heart under 
the controlling influence of divine principles. 

After having walked a distance sufficiently 
fatiguing to render rest welcome, and having 






THE SANDS. 323 

arrived at a point, where a bold, rocky head-land, 
from which the sea never wholly retired, obstructed 
their further progress, they sat down in the shade 
of a projecting cliff, which the sun had recently 
left, and partook of a light refreshment. This being 
over, Edwin was requested to read some thoughts, 
which he had written, on 

THE SANDS. 

" The common sand which clothes the shores 
of the ocean, and invests immense regions of the 
Asiatic and European continents, is considered by 
mineralogists, to be 'a granulated kind of quartz; 
or consists of rounded grains of small size, which 
have a vitreous or glassy surface.' ' In the torrid 
regions of Africa and Asia, there are immense 
tracts of desert covered only with sand, so dry 
and light as to be moveable before the wind, and 
to be formed into vast hills and boundless plains. 
These are incessantly changing their place, and 
frequently overwhelm and destroy the travellers 
whose necessities require them to enter these 
dreary realms.' Addison has borrowed a striking 
image from this latter fact. 



Lo, where our wild Numidian wastes extend, 
Sudden th' impetuous hurricanes descend, 



324 THE SANDS. 

Wheel through the air, in circling eddies play, 
Tear up the sands, and sweep whole realms away 
The helpless traveller, with wild surprise, 
Sees the dry desert all around him rise, 
And smother'd in the dusty whirlwind dies. 



} 



" These immeasurable regions of sterility seem 
to be widely extending themselves, especially in 
an easterly direction. They have already spread 
over provinces, which were the very granaries of 
ancient times ; and have buried beneath their 
gradually advancing and accumulating masses, 
temples, and cities, which once were the admira- 
tion of the world. The African sandy wastes, and 
only their skirts, are known but to the wandering 
Arab, the lawless Moor, the bleeding captive, and 
the adventurous traveller. There 

Regions immense, unsearchable, unknown, 
Bask in the splendour of the solar zone. 

" There, a lake impregnated with soda, and sur- 
rounded by a few stunted date trees or bushes, 
and a scanty pasturage of dingy green grass, 
forms a kind of paradisiacal contrast with the red, 
and glaring, and scorching sands of numberless 
leagues round. Is it not a reflection full of asto- 
nishment, that the Zaara itself is no more than 
an unconnected accumulation of particles resem- 
bling those which are now beneath our feet ! The 



THE SANDS. 325 

drops of the watery waste before us, have a subtile 
and intimate bond of union ; the sands of the 
desert have none. Those terrible wilds, where 
nature is forbidding in her every form, present too 
faithful a picture of the moral waste which is occu- 
pied by the fifty or more millions of Africa. 
There, man, 

Fierce as his clime, uncultur'd as his plains, 

lives and dies the victim of every passion which 
can debase, and of every calamity which can 
oppress mankind. O Canaan, son of Ham, what 
hast thou done ? what a curse hast thou brought 
down upon thy race ! 

" Can Omnipotence, when mercy repeals the 
curse, remove the barrenness of those scenes? 
The question needs not to be asked. Omnipotence 
can and may effect the miraculous renovation, 
during the millennial reign of Messiah. But we 
are certain that Almighty grace will effect a far 
greater change than this in the spiritual world. 
Of that world, under the sceptre of Emmanuel, 
not a single spotshall be sterile. When the servants 
of God shall have accomplished his gracious will, 
and disseminated the precious seed of the divine 
word throughout the field of the world, ' The 
wilderness and the solitary place shall be glad for 
them ; and the desert shall rejoice and blossom as 



w 



326 THE SANDS. 

the rose. It shall blossom abundantly, and rejoice 
even with joy and singing : the glory of Lebanon 
shall be given unto it, the excellency of Carmel 
and Sharon ; they shall see the glory of the Lord, 
and the excellency of our God/ 

" Sand is not without its important uses in the 
arts which embellish human life, and add to its 
comforts. ' When mixed in due proportion with 
lime, it forms that hard and valuable cement 
called mortar. Melted with soda and potash, it 
is formed into glass; white sand being used for 
the finer kinds, and coarse and more impure sand 
for bottle glass.' But the most valuable end, 
answered by this simple, but curious substance, is 
that which it serves in its natural position on the 
shores of the ocean. There, it not only affords 
the foot of the contemplator of nature a smooth 
and pleasant surface, and facilitates the labour of 
the mariner in hauling his bark ashore, or in 
launching it into the deep ; but it also forms a 
peculiar kind of breakwater, protecting the shore 
from the violence and inroads of the ocean. There, 
since the creation, or at least since the universal 
deluge, it has reposed upon its bed, giving way but 
little to the force of the waters, and even abating 
somewhat of that force, by thus partially yielding 
to the waves. It is thus an effectual, though a 
shifting barrier to the encroachments of the 
sea." ' 



THE SANDS. 327 

The Vicar here interrupted the young Essayist, 
by kindly asking him permission to interpose a 
remark or two, suggested to his mind, by this 
part of Edwin's paper. " The Hebrew word," 
said he, " for patient expectation, or abiding hope, 
and that for the sand of the sea are derived from 
the same root, to remain, abide, stay, wait, expect :^ 
and, accordingly, the sand of the sea affords an 
apt and beautiful illustration of the believer's hope 
and expectant state of mind. That sand, reposing 
on its rocky bed, and remaining there by its own 
weight, instead of being removed from its place 
by the rolling tides, pressed still closer to its sup- 
port ; and, though superficially disturbed by the 
waters when agitated, yet, speedily restored to its 
smooth level, happily represents the patience of 
hope resting upon the rock of ages ; adhering there 
the more strongly for the waves and tempests of 
affliction which pass over it; and, though occa- 
sionally disturbed and ruffled, yet retaining its 
position, and soon resuming its calm and placid 
character. Contemplate Jeremiah sitting alone 
and sad, amidst the ruins of his city, and the deso- 
lations of his country. What is the state of his 
mind ? It is that of the sand upon the sea-shore. 
J The Lord is my portion, saith my soul ; there- 
fore will I hope in him.' " 

39 See Parkhurst's Hebrew Lexicon. 7J"p 






328 THE SANDS. 

Edwin now resumed his paper, and read the 
remainder. 

" Things which defy the powers of human 
calculation, are, in the Book of God, compared with 
the sand. David, in his sublime Ode on the 
Divine Omniscience, the 139th Psalm, has thus 
forcibly depicted the goodness of God towards all 
and each of his redeemed people. ' How precious 
are thy thoughts unto me, O God ! how great is 
the sum of them ! If I should count them, they 
are more in number than the sand.' The Christian 
may say : ' My wants are numerous. They are 
innumerable. Even those which may possibly 
come within the reach of my own cognizance, are 
astonishingly great, and they multiply with every 
advance and every change of my being. At every 
new circumstance of my existence, my necessities 
and comforts vary ; my relative situation changes ; 
and I am exposed to fresh and unseen dangers. 
For not one of all these can I myself provide : 
how much less for those more numerous contin- 
gencies, which lie much beyond the province of 
human reason and human speculation. Should I 
for one hour take upon myself the care of these 
matters, it would be a burden far too heavy for me 
to bear, and would crush me'with its own weight. At 
the bare and indefinite contemplation, in which I 
am able and apt to indulge, I am forced to exclaim, 



• 



THE SANDS. 329 

' O Lord I am oppressed : undertake for me ! ' But 
how perfectly relieving is the view of the divine om- 
niscience and providence sketched in that Psalm ! 
It leaves me nothing to fear, and even nothing to de- 
sire beyond the being placed in His hand, whose 
care of me is as minute as my necessities. How pre- 
cious then should be the name of my Saviour, 
through whom alone it is, that these ' precious 
thoughts towards me ' have entered and abide in 
the mind of God ! ' 

" When the spirit of prophecy designed to im- 
press the mind of Abraham with the future 
greatness of the people which were to descend 
from him, the angel of God called to him out of 
heaven, and summoned his attention to the glit- 
tering host of the sky, and to the countless grains 
that cover the shores of the ocean. ' In multiply- 
ing, I will multiply thy seed as the stars of the 
heaven, as the sand which is upon the sea-shore/ 
If we look back on the accomplishment of this 
prediction, in the amazing increase of the Jewish 
nation in its highest prosperity ; and in the en- 
largement of the church of God by the admission 
of Gentile converts to Christianity ; and if we 
anticipate the results of the millennial period, we 
shall readily acknowledge, that no image could 
more forcibly express the mind of the Spirit, than 
that which was adopted in the revelation made 
to the Father of the faithful. 



330 THE SANDS. 

te We find similar language used to convey to 
us an idea of the extent and multiplicity of Solo- 
mon's mental acquirements. ' God gave Solomon 
wisdom and understanding exceeding much, and 
largeness of heart, even as the sand that is on the 
sea-shore.' If so much might be said of this 
great man's intellectual accomplishments, what 
may we not anticipate for ourselves, when, through 
abounding mercy, we shall have reached the per- 
fection of our ransomed nature, and shall be 
completely renewed after the image of God, in 
knowledge as well as in true holiness ! When, 
also, Job wished to impress the minds of his friends 
with a more adequate sense of his sorrows, he 
resorted to the same field of imagery. ' Oh that 
my grief were thoroughly weighed, and my cala- 
mity laid in the balances together ! For now it 
would be heavier than the sand of the sea.' Nor 
will the humble soul, conscious of its own guilt, 
deem it an hyperbole of language to confess, ' My 
sins have been countless as the sands of the sea : 
— countless to man, but fully and accurately 
known to God. Oh how great is that love, which 
has caused mercies and pardons to be multiplied 
to the full extent of my transgressions ! Eternity 
must give its duration to my praise for mercy, 
which it will require an eternity to know/ 

" And can we forget the instructive use, which 
the great Teacher of his own gospel made of 



THE SANDS. 331 

another property of the sand, its shifting and 
slippery quality, in the parabolic application of his 
sermon on the mount? Who has not felt the 
touching beauty and solemnity of the contrast, 
which his unerring hand has there drawn ? Let 
it wind up these imperfect and desultory remarks, 
and may it leave a salutary impression on all our 
hearts ! ' Whosoever heareth these sayings of 
mine, and doeth them, I will liken him unto a 
wise man, which built his house upon a rock : 
and the rain descended, and the floods came, and 
the winds blew, and beat upon that house, and it 
fell not : for it was founded upon a rock. And 
every one that heareth these sayings of mine, and 
doeth them not, shall be likened unto a foolish 
man, which built his house upon the sand : and 
the rain descended, and the floods came, and the 
winds blew, and beat upon that house ; and it 
fell : and great was the fall of it.' " 

" Few devout visitors of the coast," observed 
the Vicar, " can forget the Rev. J. Newton's 
simple ' Thought on the sea-shore/ But by 
way of refreshing our memory, I will request Julia 
to repeat the little piece." 

"Most readily, Papa;" said Julia, "it was 
recalled to my mind the first morning after our 

arrival at S . Many have written sacred 

poetry with more of the elegance of composition, 



332 THE SANDS. 

and the fire of genius ; but few have written so 
devoutly as the venerable Newton." 

A THOUGHT ON THE SEA-SHORE. 

In ev'ry object here, I see 
Something-, O Lord, that leads to thee ; 
Firm as the rocks thy promise stands, 
Thy mercies countless as the sands, 
Thy love a sea immensely wide, 
Thy grace an ever-flowing- tide. 

In ev'ry object here, I see 

Something-, my heart, that points at thee; 

Hard as the rocks that bound the strand, 

Unfruitful as the barren sand, 

Deep and deceitful as the ocean, 

And, like the tides, in constant motion. 

The party now agreed to separate till the car- 
riages should arrive. They did so, and rambled 
in different directions and groups, as their fancy 
led them. At last, when the signal was given for 
their return, Theophilus was missing, and after 
some time spent in searching for him, it was dis- 
covered that he had incautiously advanced too 
far along the shore, and that the tide had cut off 
his retreat. He had, however, clambered up an 
insulated rock, the top of which was never covered 
by the water, and it was agreed to leave him there 
to wait the ebb of the tide, and that Edwin should 



THE SANDS. 333 

meet him on his return. This was accordingly 
done, and the two young friends came home in 
the evening. Theophilus in part atoned for the 
temporary uneasiness he had occasioned, by pro- 
ducing a copy of lines which he had written 
while upon the rock. 

THE ROCK. 

Though dear the social group, — the flow of soul 
Commingling freely with its kindred mind, — 
Yet who, at times, but loves the lonely hour 
In dewy meadow by the silver stream, 
Or 'mid the forest's shade and echoing groves, 
Or on the heathy mountain-top in storms, 
Or by the murm'ring wave on ocean's shore? 
'Tis well to doff the links that man to man 
Enchain : — to realize alone the bond 
Which heav'n has fasten'd round the Christian's soul. 
Ah ! is that tie my own ? Fit hour to see ! 
For distant now are all, on whom I hang- 
Dependent by the ties of kin or love. 
God of the boundless heav'ns and pathless deep, 
In thee I live, and move, and have my all ! 
But sin hath sever'd 'tween my soul and thee ; 
Thy wrath may frown on him thy care sustains. 
I own my meed to be a thousand deaths, 
And twice ten thousand more — a deathless death ! 
Yet, Lord ! I hate my sin : I love thy name, 
Prepared to kiss thy rod, yet plead for life. 
For has not Jesus died ? On Calv'ry's rock, — 
Peopled indeed with guilty Zion's throngs — 
He hung in blood, forsaken of his God, 



334 THE SANDS. 

His Father — there alone sustain'd the load, 
That else had crush'd a world — alone he died. 
Then was the chasm fill'd, the link repair'd : 
Man touch'd the throne of God, and liv'd again. 

Lord, I believe: help my unbelief! 
Feeble and young, surrounded by the waves — 
The boist'rous waves of this tumultuous world, 
And buffeted by storms, my faith retains 
Its hold adhesive to my rock — to Thee, 
As clings the limpet to the wave-worn cliff. 
Ah ! can it fail me in the trying hour : — 
The rock, to which I cleave, or faith, that holds 
My trembling spirit to its only hope ? 
No ; 'tis the rock of ages, round whose brow 
The storms of centuries successless beat : — 
Around whose solid base the flood of years 
Rolls harmless : — no ; that faith, or strong, or weak, 
Is not my feeble hold on Thee, my rock, 
But thine on me — the grasping of thy hand, 
Which ne'er will let me go. All praise be thin, ! 

As here, uplifted o'er the swelling deep, 
Cut off from human converse, all alone, 
I wait the ev'ning hour, and promis'd friend : 
E'en so, ere long, shall I survey alone 
Death's intervening flood 'tween me and heav'n, 
Wait its slow ebb, and, at life's e\ T 'ning hour, 
Hail my best Friend's approach, and hasten home. 
Blest moment, come apace ! Joy, beyond all 
That ever fill'd that all-including word, — 
What joy, to find me in a Father's arms, 
A Friend's embrace, a Saviour's peaceful breast, 
While thronging round, with smiles and choral songs, 
Brothers and sisters hail me to the skies." 



CHAPTER XXVI 



BATHING. 



A considerable quantity of rain fell on the 
following day, and the Hamiltons did not see 
their friends till the evening, when they called 
and spent with them a couple of hours. The 
day, however, had not passed slowly, or hung 
heavily upon their hands. It was no cause of 
gloom and discontent to either of the two families, 
to be thrown upon their own resources for employ- 
ment or entertainment. The love " which seeketh 
not her own/' eminently prevailed in the domestic 
circle, to the banishment of strife, and of those 
selfish passions that too often embitter the hours 
which the members of a family are obliged to 
spend exclusively with each other : while in their 
separate pursuits, they individually prized the ad- 
vantages of retirement, and fully entered into 
the admonitory import of Solomon's memorable 
saying : " Through desire, a man, having sepa- 
rated himself, seeketh and intermeddleth with all 
wisdom." 



336 BATHING. 

In the course of the evening, Mrs. Hamilton 
said, " I have hitherto contributed little to our 
plan of mutual information and mental recreation. 
But I am not disposed to take any blame to myself 
for the deficiency of my contributions, because 
from the first I deprecated your expecting much 
from my pen. I have now, however, thrown 
together a few plain thoughts on a common topic, 
and will, with your permission, submit them to 
your notice. They are reflections on 

BATHING. 

" One of the chief ends for which visitors resort 
to the sea-side, is to bathe in the salt wave, and 
to strengthen or renew their bodily health by 
its invigorating properties. What a magnificent 
instance have we before us, of the benevolence and 
goodness of the God of nature, in the salubrious 
qualities which he has infused into the sea ! — 
impregnating every drop of the ocean with a saline 
particle, which, amongst the numerous beneficial 
ends it was to answer, was destined to be an 
instrument of good to man, suffering in the flesh, 
under the penal curse of God's violated law. ' Let 
the medicinal powers and salutary virtues, with 
which the Almighty has endued the waters of the 
sea, be always had in remembrance by those who 
have happily experienced them : let praise and 



BATHING. 337 

glory be rendered to the Great Physician, who 
hath made the ocean a magnificent mineral bath, 
in which, as formerly in the pool of Bethesda, 
the weak become strong, and the sick whole. 
And when we behold the mighty works thus 
wrought for the bodies of men, let us reflect 
upon that sovereign mercy, which in like manner 
strengthens the infirmities, and heals the diseases 
of our minds ; and let us be equally diligent in 
using the means appointed to restore them to 
vigour and purity, that so, thus doubly benefited 
and blessed, we may express the gratitude of our 
hearts in those divine words of David — ' Praise the 
Lord, O my soul, and all that is within me, praise 
his holy name. Praise the Lord, O my soul, and 
forget not all his benefits ; who forgiveth all thy 
sin, and healeth all thine infirmities ; who saveth 
thy life from destruction, and crowneth thee with 
loving kindness and tender mercies ; who satis- 
fieth thy mouth with good things, so that thy 
youth is renewed like the eagle's.' 

" But the whole of this mighty deep — this 
' magnificent mineral bath,' affords only an im- 
perfect emblem of that divine mercy, which, as 
' a sea immensely wide/ has neither bottom nor 
shore. This ocean, vast as it appears, is but a 
drop to ' the fountain opened for sin, and for un- 
cleanness.' The cleansing property of the salt 
water is but imperfectly detersive, whereas ' the 
Q 



338 BATHING. 

blood of Christ cleanseth from all sin/ The me- 
dicinal qualities of the briny deep are numerous, 
and greatly efficacious. For several complaints, 
if taken in their early stages, sea air and sea water 
prove an effectual cure, under the blessing of his 
hand, whose prerogative it is to say, ' I am the 
Lord that healeth thee.' Have we ourselves 
derived benefit from our visit to the coast, and 
our uses of the Bethesda, which waits for no angel 
to agitate its waters, and render them salubrious ? 
Let us own the divine presence, and be thankful 
for the blessing ; and let us not be guilty of the 
atheistic impiety of confining our acknowledgments 
to the operation of secondary causes. 

" Yet, after all, how loudly do the walls of the 
temples of God, which adorn our coast, — walls 
covered with memorials of the departed dead, who 
left their ashes amongst strangers, — proclaim the 
incompetency of the salubrious wave, to meet the 
case of every one who plunges into it with the 
riope of deriving from it a healing and renovating 
virtue. The diseases are not few, to which ira- 
rnersion in the sea proves a fatal stimulant. Such 
is its effect in all inflammatory disorders, and it 
fails of administering lasting relief in many others, 
when they have gained an ascendancy in the 
constitution. But where is the case of spiritual 
disease, which may not find a cure by an appli- 
cation, in faith, to the ocean of our Redeemer's 



BATHING. 339 

merits and love ? ' Here, in this Divine ocean, 
souls find all their relief; his merits are no more 
confined, no more locked up, and we no more 
restrained from the use of them, than the ocean 
itself. Here would I enter myself a patient ; here 
may I bathe daily, by my renewed application, 
by a living faith : I would be drawn by the display 
of those excellent properties which recommend 
every medicine — an exact suitableness to my 
case, an abundant sufficiency to answer all my 
wants, and prescribed by him who is infinitely 
wise, and the greatest friend of the poor patient. 
I consider the volume of Revelation, as the dis- 
pensatory of this Physician, not only describing 
the nature of the panacea, but the method of 
application. Here I am directed at one time to 
drink, and another time to bathe ; and all, that I 
may be cleansed from the filthiness of the flesh 
and spirit, and, which is the health of the soul, 
that I may attain perfection of holiness in the fear 

of God. O blessed Redeemer ! there is no 

malady which thou canst not relieve. Let my 
spiritual distempers be never so various, and every 
one never so malignant, inveterate, or obstinate; 
though my whole soul be emaciated, weakened, or 
corrupted ; though from the sole of the foot to the 
crown of the head there be no soundness ; though 
the schools of philosophy, and all human aids, are 
physicians of no value, thy blood can cleanse from 



340 BATHING. 

every iniquity; thy Spirit can give life, though 
dead ; can invigorate me when torpid ; can raise 
me when faint and bowed down ; yea, can give 
that strength and alacrity, whereby I shall be 
enabled to ' run without weariness/ and work 
with diligence and activity.' 

" The salubrious properties of the sea can 
benefit those only whose habitations are near its 
shore, or whose circumstances allow them to visit 
it. Multitudes live and die without ever having 
an opportunity, however greatly they may desire 
it, and however fair may be the prospect of their 
being advantaged thereby. It is not thus with 
the grace of salvation, through our Lord Jesus 
Christ. All who are near enough to hear the 
report of its efficacy, and are willing to make trial 
of its healing power, are enabled to avail them- 
selves of the inestimable boon. The poor as well 
as the rich, the unlearned as well as the wise, 
the old as well as the young, are welcome to this 
Bethesda ; and all that resort to it are as fully re- 
stored as Naaman the leper was, after dipping 
himself seven times in Jordan. Free as the waters 
that encircle our lands, divine mercy is offered 
without money and without price, to all : — ' who- 
soever will, let him come ! ' 

" How often does the Christian, who himself 
has experienced the restorative powers of divine 
mercy, long to speak of his Saviour to others, 






BATHING. 341 

when he sees the numerous invalids that throng 
to the various watering-places of his native land. 
He beholds many, courting pleasures which they 
have lost the capacity to enjoy, and, while they 
exert the few last efforts of their failing strength 
to visit scenes of gaiety, and to cultivate that 
friendship of the world which is enmity with 
God, keep far aloof from every scene, and from 
all society, which might be helpful to their souls. 
Even when the eye glistens with the brilliancy 
which disease imparts, and the cheek is painted 
by the hand of death, and fanned by the breeze 
which is soon to bend the flower on its grave, 
with what miserable fondness does man cling to 
life, and its vain, transitory enjoyments ! The 
Christian sighs while he views those barriers, 
which the customs of life may throw up between 
him and the objects of his compassion, for fain 
would he address them in strains like these. 
' Brother ! Sister ! Friend I I have a heart too 
readily disposed to sympathize with thy sorrows, 
to censure thy solicitude, and that of thy friends, 
to use the means of restoring health, which a kind 
providence has placed within thy reach. If it be 
consistent with the divine will, and with thy best 
interests, may it please God to own and bless those 
means to thy recovery. But shall all thy care — 
all thy time be expended upon the health of a 
frame, which can last but for a time ? Is thy im- 



342 BATHING. 

mortal and most precious soul— thy immaterial 
spirit, which has eternity before it, to attract none 
of thy anxieties, or to receive at best but a 
secondary and languid attention ? Can it escape 
thee, that thy resort to these salubrious scenes 
may not be attended with the desired advantage ? 
Hast thou forgotten how many, and some perhaps 
within thine own circle, have just bowed to taste 
or touch the wave, and died ? Even should it be 
the good pleasure of the Lord and giver of life to 
bless the bracing air and healing waters to thy 
recovery of health, wilt thou return to life, as it 
were from the borders of the grave, only to add 
another to the multitude, who live to forget God, 
and who cause his ministers to say, as Jeremiah 
did of old, • O Lord, are not thine eyes upon the 
truth ? thou hast stricken them, but they have not 
grieved ; thou hast consumed them, but they have 
refused to receive correction : they have made 
their faces harder than a rock ; they have refused 
to return.' ? O that the voice of a stranger may 
be heard by thee at a season, when surely it 
behoves thee to lay aside the habit of thy nature, 
which is so prone to be serious about trifling 
things, and trifling about serious things. Look 
around thee, and read the many touching lessons 
that are reflected from the volume of Revelation 
upon the volume of nature. Look at the froth 
upon yonder white-crested waves : is it lighter 



BATHING. 343 

than those pleasures, which have hitherto made 
up thy cup of earthly bliss ? Glance at those 
sands : is the foundation of thy hope for eternity 
built upon surer ground ? Contemplate that 
vessel, spreading all her canvas to the favouring 
gale, skilfully shunning every rock and every 
shallow, and making for the desired haven. Such 
is the consistent Christian. May I say, such art 
thou ? Thou hast bathed again and again in the 
briny wave, constrained by painfulness and lassi- 
tude to seek therein for renovated vigour, and 
eagerly desiring a cure. Thy soul's maladies are 
more numerous, more inveterate, and more dan- 
gerous than those of thy body. Let me towards 
thee act the Prophet's part toward Naaman, 
arid point thee to where thou mayest be cleansed 
and healed. Suffer not pride, resembling that 
which had nearly proved fatal to the Syrian 
nobleman, to withhold thee from an experiment, 
simple, yet efficacious and infallible. I direct thy 
attention to the mercy of God in Christ. Thereby 
alone, to adopt the sentiment of our communion 
service, thou canst obtain remission of thy sins, 
and be made a partaker of the kingdom of heaven. 
When thou lookest at yonder deep, and sighest 
after lost health and happiness, and desirest its 
return, while the hollow murmur of that deep 
seems to answer, ' It is not in me ! ' — then turn 
thine eye to the Saviour, and thou shalt receive 



344 BATHING. 

from him no such dismaying reply, but rather an 
answer of peace. His language, to all the perishing 
sons and daughters of Adam, is, ' Look unto me, 
and be ye saved !' There may be hours when, 
seated on the beach, or at thine opened casement, 
thou courtest the soothing sea-breeze, and art 
refreshed by its cool and invigorating breath ; but 
yet thou art painfully conscious of thy need of 
something more than this. Regard that exhi- 
larating breeze as emblematical of the gracious 
influences of the Holy Spirit. He is the Paraclete 
— the blessed Comforter of the children of God, 
and his grace is sufficient for thee, to revive 
thy soul when faint, to refresh it when weary, to 
quicken it when cleaving to the dust, to cool its 
feverish passions, and to stimulate its appetite for 
the rich viands of the gospel feast. Seest thou 
that rock, beaten by the wave below and by the 
storm above, yet immoveable and imperishable ? 
Contemplate it as shadowing forth the unchange- 
ableness of thy Saviour, who is the same yesterday, 
to-day, and for ever. Are thy sorrows like the 
deep and rapid rise of the tide, increasing every 
moment ? Be not alarmed ; if thou art interested 
in Christ, by faith in his promises, thy afflictions 
shall only do for thee, what the full tide does for 
the vessel on its surface, bear thee up and bear 
thee on to thy port — thy everlasting home. Listen, 
then, afflicted stranger, to the voice of an unknown 






BATHING. 345 

friend, and be admonished, instructed, and com- 
forted/" 

" When I had written this paper," added Mrs. 
Hamilton, " a few other thoughts, bearing some 
analogy to these, assumed a metrical form, and I 
committed them to writing. 

Oh ! bear me to the briny wave : 
Oh ! fan me with the ocean breeze : 

Oh ! try this fading form to save : — 
To give this frame of anguish ease ! 

Thousands beneath that healing tide, 
Acquire the pearl of health again : 

Thousands that balmy air have tried, 
And been releas'd from all their pain. 

Why should I languish here and die, 
While healing virtues there abound '( 

Oh ! bear me to the waters nigh, 
Oh ! place me where relief is found ! 

Ah ! thou may'st bathe in yonder wave : 
Ah ! thou may'st breathe that balmy air ; 

Yet find, hard by, an early grave, 

As thousands who have perish'd there ! 

But stretch thine eager view beyond : 

Lo, mercy flows in ampler tides ! 
And never shall the soul despond, 

That in its saving power confides. 
«2 



346 BATHING. 

Why perish with an ocean nigh, 

Where millions have salvation found ? 

Why, sullen, lay thee down to die, 

Where health, and life, and joy abound ? 

Oh ! haste thee — haste thee to that deep, 
That has no bottom — has no shore : 

And when in death thine ashes sleep, 
Thy soul shall live to die no more." 



CHAPTER XXVII 



THE LATTER DAY. 



Before the Hamiltons and Willoughbys sepa- 
rated, on Friday evening, an agreement was 
entered into, that as many of the party as might 
have it conveniently in their power, should on 
Saturday prepare a short piece, in prose or verse, 
upon some passage of Holy Scripture, declarative 
of the future prospects of the church of Christ, 
and illustrated by imagery borrowed from the 
world of waters. The whole were to be read in 
the Vicar's drawing-room, on the ensuing Sunday 
evening, preparatory to the closing family service. 
The proposal of this plan originated with Mr. 
Willoughby, and it had been suggested to his 
mind by the circumstance, that two sermons were 
to be preached in the Parish Church on Sunday, 
in aid of the Church Missionary Society. The 
scheme was taken up with much alacrity, as it 
was well adapted to prepare the mind for listening 



348 THE LATTER DAY. 

to the addresses which were expected to be de- 
livered from the pulpit. 

On their way to the house of God, on the 
Sabbath morning, the Vicar said : " In all the 
works of God there is a complexity, as well as a 
simplicity, both in their operations and results, 
which is well deserving of our admiration and 
praise. It is not one simple process alone, which 
accomplishes some particular end, but the union 
of many simple operations : nor does one solitary 
effect result from those operations, but many ; and 
these, though generally related to each other, and 
having certain common characteristics, yet distinct 
and various. Of this we have admirable instances, 
in the operations and results of our great Societies 
for the diffusion of divine truth through the earth. 
I specify the Church Missionary Society. Keep 
out of view, if you can, for a time, its grand scope 
— the evangelization of the heathen world, and 
then contemplate its wonderful and extensive cor- 
relative benefits. It has thrown into prominent 
notice the moral and spiritual condition and claims 
of our own colonies, and been mainly instrumental 
in procuring for our foreign possessions, those im- 
portant ecclesiastical establishments which they 
now enjoy. It bears with weighty and salutary 
effect upon several foreign churches, which for 
ages have been in a declining state, and 'bids fair 
to prove itself to them a bulwark, to save them 



THE LATTER DAY. 349 

from impending and total ruin. I will not dwell 
upon the advantages which men of science and 
enterprise derive from the travels, researches, and 
journals of our Missionaries ; nor will I now stay 
to expatiate upon the aid afforded by the Institu- 
tion, to the cause of Negro Emancipation. Other, 
and, without depreciating those I have just men- 
tioned, inestimably superior benefits, have accrued 
to our own land from the proceedings of the 
Society. They have had a large share in reviving 
the partially dormant energies of the old Societies, 
which have for a century and a quarter existed in 
the Church of England : have encouraged and 
even promoted the successful operations of similar 
institutions, supported by the several classes of 
our dissenting brethren : and have greatly facili- 
tated the successful labours of that Society, which 
I deem the grandest and most blessed association 
of human effort for the first interests of mankind, 
that has ever adorned our fallen world — I scarcely 
need to name the British and Foreign Bible 
Society. But let me add to these things, that 
which crowns the whole. The home means, taken 
to raise, support, and carry on our Missions, have 
been the channels of divine blessing to our Na- 
tional Church. The powerful reaction of those 
means, and their immediate recompense, have been 
conspicuously developed in promoting the present 
remarkable revival of sound and fervent religion, 



350 THE LATTER DAY. 

both amongst the Clergy and Laity of Great 
Britain. Great have been the happy results of 
our Missionaries' labours, and greater still are 
those in prospect on foreign shores ; but if none 
of these had hitherto encouraged our faith and 
hope, and rewarded our efforts, these collateral and 
domestic benefits have amply repaid our expendi- 
ture of wealth and life. Is not this the Divine 
Spirit's seal upon the heart of Britain, testifying 
of the divine favour and approbation, and assuring 
of ultimate and abundant success ? May we to- 
day have the evidence of experience to the cor- 
rectness of these remarks/' 

In the evening the two families met as had 
been proposed, and the following were the pro- 
ductions of their several pens. The Vicar's was 

A COMMENT ON HAB. ii. 14. 



The earth shall te filled with the knowledge of the glory of the 
Lord, as the waters cover the sea. 



" This sublime and comprehensive prediction 
occurs both amidst the threatenings of Jehovah 
against the adversaries of his church, and amidst 
his promises of the future glory of that church. 
Of what avail are all the schemes of worldly poli- 
ticians, and the cruel persecutions of those who 
thirst for the blood of the children of God ? The 



THE LATTER DAY. 351 

Prophet exultingly asks, f Behold, is it not of the 
Lord of Hosts that the people shall labour in the 
very fire, and the people shall weary themselves 
for very vanity ? For (notwithstanding all diffi- 
culties and opposition) the earth shall be filled 
with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord, as 
the waters cover the sea/ Isaiah had previously 
foretold the same grand consummation, in the days 
of the ' Root of Jesse.' The glory of the Lord 
appears in the face of Jesus Christ — in his person, 
work, and offices. The knowledge of this glory 
is contained in the Holy Scriptures, and waits 
only for the great outpouring of the Holy Spirit to 
diffuse itself in a flood of light through the whole 
world. The bed of the ocean contains cavities as 
deep, and eminences as lofty, as any that are found 
on the dry land. But all are covered with the 
waters. Thus shall it be in the final dispensation 
of God. The vallies, the plains, and the moun- 
tains of the moral world shall be covered with the 
knowledge of the glory of the Lord. The poor 
savage of Australia, who now occupies the lowest 
grade in the moral scale : the dense and level 
millions of the most populous heathen regions : 
the more elevated and cultivated portions of hu- 
manity : — all regions, wherever man is found, and 
in whatever state, shall be blessed with this pro- 
mised visitation of heavenly light and mercy. 
This flood of knowledge too, unlike the shallow 



352 THE LATTER DAY. 

streams which now just irrigate some small por- 
tions of the earth, shall be deep as well as universal. 
It shall be a knowledge confirmed by personal 
experience, profound, extensive, and abiding. ' I, 
the Lord, will hasten it in his time.' A full, calm, 
transparent body of waters, like the ocean, resting 
in tranquil grandeur in its vast channel, and re- 
flecting the bright image of the smiling firmament, 
is a grand spectacle. But what is the most mag- 
nificent display of material grandeur, in comparison 
with the scene opened to the believer's eye, through 
the vista of prophecy ? A world peopled with an 
unprecedented population ; at peace with God, 
through the propitiating blood of his dear Son, 
and at perfect peace within itself; pure as the 
stainless water in its knowledge, spirit, and morals ; 
reposing under the unclouded light of heaven, 
enjoying the divine favour, and reflecting the 
divine perfections ; — this will be a spectacle for all 
worlds — a spectacle on which Jehovah himself will 
look down with full complacency. He will rest in 
his love." 

Mrs. Hamilton read 

THOUGHTS ON PSALM lxxii. 8. 
He shall have dominion also from sea to sea. 

" Unquestionably, ■ a greater than Solomon is 



THE LATTER DAY. 353 

here.' Great, comparatively, as was the glory of 
Solomon's kingdom and reign, it was but the 
shadowy type of the glory of David's Son and 
David's Lord, and of his everlasting kingdom. 
Solomon, according to the prediction of his father, 
swayed his sceptre from the Mediterranean ' Sea' 
to the flood of the Euphrates, sometimes called a 
' sea : ' and perhaps his dominion even bordered 
on the Persian Gulf. But the church has ever 
been accustomed to interpret this prophetic Psalm 
of King Messiah. 

" My soul, rouse thyself from thy native selfish- 
ness — a selfishness, which sometimes taints thy 
enjoyment of personal, spiritual mercies. Stand 
upon the nearest shore, and rejoice in the full and 
widest sense of these words, ' He,' thy Prince, 
and King, and Saviour, ' shall have dominion 
from sea to sea.' From the sea which now laves 
the desolate shores of Sion to the Atlantic, and 
from the Atlantic to the Pacific, — over every 
region, whose edge the ocean touches, my Re- 
deemer is to reign. His dominion shall be one, 
on which the sun of the material, and the sun of 
the spiritual world shall never set ; which the 
Prince of darkness shall no longer benight and 
circumscribe ; and which shall exhibit in reality, 
all that Prophets and Poets have pictured respect- 
ing the Millennium. 

" It was on the terrace of a ' house by the sea- 



354 THE LATTER DAY. 

side,' 40 that the Apostle Peter beheld the celebrated 
vision, which opened the dominion of Messiah, 
from the narrow limits of the typical Solomon's 
kingdom, to the empire of the earth. Let me, 
while residing in a somewhat similar situation, 
and thankfully hearing the Ministers of God 
e preaching peace by Jesus Christ,' exult in the 
confident assurance, then communicated to the 
mind of St. Peter, that * He is Lord of all,' and 
that the day is probably not far distant, when 
the throne of Christ shall be reflected by every 
wave, and the standard of his cross be planted on 
every shore. 

" Let me, then, who am not likely to live to see that 
day, while I constantly pray for its approach, seek 
to bring every thought — every imagination of my 
soul into willing subjection to my Kingly Saviour. 
O Lord ! is the whole earth to be filled with thy 
glory, and shall not my heart ? Shall all men be 
blessed in thee, and shall not I be blessed in thee ? 
Shall the kings of the isles bring thee presents, 
and all kings fall down before thee, and all na- 
tions serve thee, and shalt thou not have do- 
minion over my soul ? O send down thy Spirit 
of grace ! Let this be the day of thy power ! 
Let me be willing to have thee fully reign over 



me 



i » 



Acts x. 6. 



the latter day. 355 

Mr. Willoughby had written the following 
verses, on 

LET THE SEA ROAR, AND THE FULNESS THEREOF. 
Psalm xcvi. 11. 

Hfi cometh ! Who ? My Lord ! my God ! 
'Tis Hfc, who erst on Calv'ry trod, 
With bending form and bleeding brow ; 
But glory mantles round him now : 
He comes to reign ! He comes to save 
His ransom'd from the fiery wave ! 

He cometh ! Let the ocean roar 
Its loud acclaim on ev'ry shore ; 
Let the full tide roll on the sound, 
And echo fill the earth around ; 
He cometh, seated on his throne 
Let all the world their Sov'reign own. 

He cometh ! Let the rocks and caves, 
The tropic and the polar waves, 
The eastern flood, the western main, 
Announce Messiah's golden reign : 
He cometh ! Let the heav'ns rejoice, 
And gladden'd earth lift up her voice. 

He cometh ! Lo, his throne is rais'd ! 
His name from sea to sea is prais'd : 
His banner, waving o'er the tide, 
Bids the proud-crested waves subside : 
He cometh ! Ocean's ample breast 
Is sooth'd to everlasting rest. 



356 THE LATTER DAY. 

Louisa Hamilton read, 

A REFLECTION ON REV. six. 6. 

And I heard, as it were, the voice of a great multitude, and as 
the voice of many waters, and as the voice of mighty thunderings, 
saying, Alleluia ! for the Lord God omnipotent reigneth. 

" Perhaps * creation does not afford a fourth ' 
similitude, equal to the three here employed to 
describe the songs of the heavenly choir. Of these 
three, the second does not yield to the others in 
sublimity. Waters — many waters, are, as it were, 
gifted with the power of utterance. They have a 
' voice/ We have heard it, and listened thereto 
with solemnity. It has brought to our remem- 
brance St. John's vision in Patmos. We have seemed, 
with him, to hear the echo of the heavenly anthem, 
rolling round, like the voice of many waters when 
resounding along the rocky shores. Alleluiah ! 
Praise ye the Lord ! This will be the universal 
song from men and angels, when the Lord shall 
take to himself his great power, and reign unri- 
valled over a ransomed and renewed world. Yea, 
the very waters of the deep will seem to repeat the 
same glad sound. Every wave, as it rolls to the 
shore of the renovated earth, will appear to the 
devout soul to cry, Alleluiah ! It may now sanc- 
tify our walks along the wave-beaten strand, and 
our wakeful hours at night, if we mingle our own 
voice with that of the mighty and many waters ; 



THE LATTER DAY. 357 

and, remembering the past wonders of redeeming 
love and power, and anticipating its future works, 
exclaim — Alleluiah ! For the Lord God omnipo- 
tent reigneth." 

Miss Willoughby, who took a lively interest in 
the cause of the degraded, and yet noble, the long 
out-cast, but not off-cast people of the Jews, brought 
forward 

REMARKS ON ISAIAH xi. 11. 

And it shall come to pass in that day, that the Lord shall set his 
hand again the second time to recover the remnant of his people, 
which shall be left, from Assyria, and from Egypt, and from Pathros, 
and from Cush, and from Elam, and from Shinar, and from Hamath, 
and from the islands of the sea. 

" Jehovah has once, and only once, brought back 
his people from their dispersions. He has under- 
taken and promised to recover them ' a second 
time/ A remnant of the Jews has been most 
wonderfully preserved through a period of disper- 
sion much longer than that through which they 
subsisted together as a nation. This remnant 
now lies scattered over the kingdoms of every 
continent, and the islands of every sea. But it 
shall be recovered. Are then the efforts of Chris- 
tians to be ridiculed, as either enthusiastic or 
presumptuous ; and is disappointment to be ex- 
pected from every scheme that is brought to bear 



358 THE LATTER DAY. 

upon the Jewish nation ? Is it, then, enthusiastic 
simply to believe, and presumptuous to look for 
the fulfilment of the word of Him who cannot lie ? 
Or are the terms so convertible in their meaning, 
that, believing those promises, and looking for 
their fulfilment, it becomes enthusiasm and pre- 
sumption, to use the ordinary means for the 
accomplishment of the end ? Well : let this all 
be as it may. Let the schemes of men, even of 
wise and holy men, come to nought. The page 
of immutable truth assures us, that ' The Lord 
shall set his hand ' to the accomplishment of his 
word. The Root of Jesse shall be set up as an 
ensign for the nations, and round it shall he 
assemble the outcasts of Israel, and gather together 
the dispersed of Judah, from the four corners of 
the earth. Yes : the thousands of Hebrew stran- 
gers, who dwell in these ' Islands of the sea' shall 
be recovered to their God, their Saviour, and the 
land of their fathers; and remain in unbroken 
peace, as a national monument of divine grace 
and power, in the centre of a converted and admir- 
ing world. - The Lord shall set his hand' to the 
work. It matters little, what may be his destined 
instrument. We believe that he will employ 
ordinary means, while he will bless those means 
in an extraordinary manner. In the interim, it is 
the imperative duty and high privilege of the 
Christian world, vigorously to employ those means. 



THE LATTER DAY. 359 

Even should we be mistaken as to the mode, 
in which God has graciously purposed to bring 
about his designs of mercy to his ancient people, 
it will be no mean testimony of his favour, if he 
shall say of our attempts, as he said of David's 
desire to build a temple to his name, ' Thou didst 
well that it was in thine heart.' " 

i 

1 The productions of the rest of the party are 

subjoined with the names of the respective 

writers. 



Sing unto the Lord a new song, and his praise from the end of 
the earth, ye that go down to the sea, and all that is therein ; the 
isles and the inhabitants thereof. Isaiah xlii. 10. 

Pilgrims of the broad, wild sea, 

Coursing its rough bosom o'er, 
Sing Jehovah's majesty, — 

Shout from earth's remotest shore ! 
Ever new your choral song, 
Floating the blue deep along. 

Dwellers in the sea-girt isles, 
Where eternal winter scowls ; — 

Where eternal summer smiles ; — 
Where the wild tornado howls, 

Or the breath of spices plays ; — 

Chaunt divine Messiah's praise ! 

Ye, who, 'till the Gospel shone, 
Dwelt where flaming Pele reign'd, 



360 THE LATTER DAY. 

On her dire volcanic throne, 

O'er a thousand islands stain'd — 
Streaming dark with human blood, 
Reeking from the azure flood :- — 

Ye, who roam Australia's shore, 
Human but in form and crime : — 

Ye, who feast on human gore, 
Basking in the southern clime : — 

Ye, who spread your leafy sails, 

Freighted from Formosa's vales : — 

Sable myriads of the west, 

Bondag'd to a foreign soil, 
Where the sweet cane thrives unblest, 

Cultur'd by your blood and toil : — 
All ye dwellers of the sea, 
Sing Jehovah's majesty ! 

Lo ! the twilight sweetly smiles, 

Blushing in the eastern sky ; 
Hail it, earth's ten thousand isles, 

Lift your mingled voices high ! 
Lo ! He comes ! with loud acclaim, 
Shout Emmanuel's saving name ! 

Lo ! He comes, to judge, to save : — 
Judgment, for his foes and ours : — 

Tell it, ev'ry rolling wave, — - 

Judgment for Hell's trembling pow'rs ; 

But salvation for his own : 

Saints, behold your promis'd crown ! 

P. Hamilton. 



THE LATTER DAY. 361 

The abundance of the sea shall be converted unto thee. 
Isaiah lx. 5. 

" This is one of the rich and numerous promises, 
which hang in clusters yet unripe, around the 
ruined walls and dreary cliffs of Zion. These 
promises shall arrive at maturity in the Lord's 
appointed time. The Christian often scarcely 
knows whether to weep or to smile at the infidel 
indifference, or impious contempt, with which 
prophetic parts of the divine word like this are 
treated. But it is enough for him to know, that 
it is the word of Him who cannot lie, and the 
purpose of Him who cannot fail of accomplishing 
his designs. 

" It is to the Jewish church that this sublime 
address of the prophetic spirit is directed. It is 
Zion that is to arise and shine amongst the 
gathered and converted nations, like a lofty 
Pharos, built upon some rock in the midst of the 
sea, and throwing its light upon every subject wave. 
In all probability, a flood of light, compared with 
which that of the brightest previous era will appear 
but feeble, will be poured upon the house of Israel 
in the latter day, and thence radiate upon the sur- 
rounding nations. To Thee, lonely Zion, shall the 
abundance of the sea be converted, in love towards 
thyself, in faith towards thy Saviour, and in zeal 
for thine honour. ' The abundance of the sea/ 



362 THE LATTER DAY. 

may be understood, either of the whole mass of 
the world's population, or of those maritime na- 
tions, which in wealth, numbers, and intelligence 
shall finally hold the pre-eminence. The fame of 
the divine glory seen upon thee shall spread from 
shore to shore, and the waves of the ocean shall not 
wash a land too remote to hear of thy greatness, and 
to rejoice in participating of thy salvation. Won- 
derful prospect ! The most despised of all the 
tribes of men is to be invested with the fullest 
honours, and from having been the last, is to be- 
come the first of the nations. ' I will make thee 
an eternal excellency, a joy of many generations:' 
' The city of the Lord, the Zion of the Holy One 
of Israel.' " 

Charles. 

Dan. vii. 2. 

Daniel spake, and said, I saw in my vision by night, and behold 

the four winds of the heaven strove upon the great sea. 

" The field of Daniel's prophetic vision presented 
the grandest combination of scenery. The ocean 
was before him, and formed the agitated arena, 
on which the four winds of heaven were contend- 
ing. Who would have expected, that out of a 
scene, as chaotic as it was sublime, should arise a 
series of mystic emblems, prophetical of the 
destined order of things upon the great theatre of 
the world ? Such, however, was the case. From 



THE LATTER DAY. 363 

that confused and visionary sea, arose in orderly 
succession, the four symbolic animals, whose forms 
and actions predicted the character and history of 
the four consecutive empires, which, in the 
arrangements of divine providence, were to arise 
and prevail in the earth. When the Prophet's 
eye glanced heavenward, a very different spectacle 
presented itself. He beheld the consummation of 
human events — the judicial session of the Ancient 
of days on his throne of flame — the judgment of 
the last beast — the establishment of the Son of 
Man's everlasting dominion. 

" The process of the vision is actually the pro- 
gressive course of events. Amidst apparent 
confusion and anarchy, the purposes of God are 
operating to their end ; and when all the empires 
of earth shall have accomplished the preparatory 
objects for which they are permitted to arise, the 
kingdom of the heavens will be set up on its im- 
perishable basis. O Saviour, thou shalt see of the 
travail of thy soul and be satisfied ! All that 
travail, indeed, must have been undergone for the 
salvation of even one immortal human spirit from 
the burning flame : but, at the same time, it is 
sovereignly efficacious for the rescue of a multitude 
that no man can number, who shall constitute the 
happy subjects of thy endless reign. May we be 
reckoned with them in glory everlasting ! " 

Theophilus. 



364 THE LATTER DAY. 

THE SEA AND THE WAVES ROARING. 

Luke xxi. 25. 

" It is of importance to observe, that predictions 
of the Lord's Second Advent, are generally, if not 
universally of a mixed character. The glorious 
reign of the Prince of Peace, will not be ushered 
in with unmingled sounds of joy and gladness 
through the world. The flood of mercy, which is 
to rise and cover the earth, is to be preceded by 
' the sea and the waves roaring ; men's hearts 
failing them for fear, and for looking after those 
things which are coming on the earth.' By these 
precursory judgments, the church will be purged, 
and the enemies of the Lord will be destroyed. 
Solemn consideration ! Let it chastise the fervour 
of our glowing anticipations, and prompt us to 
close and frequent scrutiny into the state of our 
own souls. Are we prepared to be sifted as wheat? 
Alas ! it is too possible to have the imagination 
filled with glowing pictures of the future glories 
of the kingdom of Christ, and yet to mistake a 
strong natural taste, for what is grand or lovely 
in prophetic vision, for a spiritual delight in the 
reign of Christ. Oh ! that, when the tempestuated 
sea and waves shall roar beneath the breath of the 
blast of the divine wrath, we may enjoy conscious 
peace with God, through Jesus Christ our Lord, 
and be serene amidst a disordered world ! " 

Louisa. 



THE LATTER DAY. 365 

The Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. 
Gen. i. 2. 

Eternal Spirit ! at the birth of things, 

Wild chaos yielded to thy brooding wings ; 

Light, order, beauty, forms sublime or fair, 

Sprang into being in the quick'ning air 

Of thy soft breath : thy plumy, gentle breast 

On all the earth a peaceful smile imprest ; 

Dark ocean beam'd with heav'n's own glorious sheen, 

And God's approving look survey 'd the finish'd scene. 

That first creation typified the last : 
The future hath its model in the past. 
What, though chaotic gloom, misrule, and strife 
Again have spread the seat of human life ; 
What though the mental world be void and drear, 
And only forms of loathsome mien appear ! 
Eternal Spirit ! Promis'd and implor'd, 
By thee our ruin'd nature is restor'd. 
Oh! once again descend, and dove-like spread 
Thy brooding wings upon the ocean's bed ; 
Chase the dark chaos of hell's fiendly reign, 
And plunge into the gulf disorder, sin, and pain ! 

As erst Jehovah's form, by angels seen, 
Glided in silent majesty between 
The lightless globes, that teem'd around his way 
Where'er he trod, and roll'd beneath his sway, 
'Till from his lips they heard the mandate fall, 
1 Let there be light ! and there was light' on all : — 
It was the beaming of Jehovah's eye, 
That lit the starry splendours of the sky ; 
He look'd upon the vast — his look was light, 
And suns appear'd where'er he turn'd his flight : — 



366 THE LATTER DAY. 

So, in the new creation's op'ning dawn, 
Jehovah, riding on the wings of morn, 
Cloth'd in the majesty of man-divine, 
On ev'ry soul, in ev'ry world, shall shine : 
Peace, the dear purchase of his precious blood, 
Shall sweetly smile o'er mountain, vale, and flood : 
New heav'ns, new earth ; — beneath, above, all new, 
Again shall meet the Lord's approving view : 
Gone, and for ever, sin and satan's train, 
Confusion, darkness, sorrow, guilt, and pain : 
Creation, recreated from the fall, 
Man shall be man again, and God be all in all. 

Edwin. 



CHAPTER XXVIII 



THE CAVERN. 



On Monday, the younger members of the two 
families went to visit a newly-discovered cavern, 
which had become a topic of general conversation. 
Charles Hamilton was requested to prepare an 
account of the excursion, with any remarks which 
might suggest themselves to his mind. In the 
afternoon of the following day, the whole party 
sailed to a distant part of the coast, and, having 
landed opposite the mouth of a large cavity in the 
rocky cliffs, drank tea after the gypsy fashion. 
While this refreshment was being prepared by the 
servants, the party seated themselves in a con- 
venient situation, and listened to the paper which 
Charles had written, on 

THE CAVERN. 

In His hand are the deep places of the earth. Ps. xcv. 4. 

" Subterranean scenery produces on the mind 
a class of impressions exclusively its own. All 



368 THE CAVERN. 

human things seem there to be more than com- 
monly remote. You appear to be 



communing 
With disembodied Nature, in her den 
Of lonely desolation, silent and dark. 



" To quote more of the language of a modern 
poet, 

These halls 
Are unprofan'd with human workmanship : 
All that thou seest — those fretted roofs, high arching, 
From their vast piMars, those broad coigns and friezes, 
And sculptured pomp grotesque, and marble floors, 
And roofs of pendulous crystal : — these are all 
Nature's primaeval architecture. 

" But the experimental believer in Revelation 
enters these remarkable places with not only such, 
but also better feelings. ' God is here. In his 
hand are the deep places of the earth.' 

" Our yesterday's excursion led us along the 
flat of a fine sandy bay for about a mile, when 
we turned inland, and after driving a few miles 
through a country of simple, rather than striking 
beauty, we reached the foot of a singularly formed 
ridge of land, not unlike the back of some huge 
animal, reposing amidst the verdant landscape. 
Having gained the height, we drove along the 



THE CAVERN. 369 

almost level summit of the hill, till we arrived 
at its extremity, where we understood was to be 
found the object of our search. A messenger 
was despatched for the farmer, who had the care 
of the interesting spot. He soon came with 
the necessary keys, lanthorn, and candles, and 
conducted us to the place. The entrance, now 
closed with a door, was narrow, and had at first 
been discovered by the accidental fall of a part of 
the soil and rock. The farmer left us here for 
some minutes, while he went into the cavern, but 
speedily returned, and, having given each of the 
gentlemen a candle, conducted us in. The 
passage descended with a moderate declivity for 
many yards, and though generally narrow and 
low, yet in parts varied in height and width. The 
rock was lime-stone, and, being much rent, and 
pervious to moisture, the roof and sides of the 
cavity were, in many parts, covered with the 
filtrated depositions of calcareous matter, in the 
forms of stalactite and stalagmite. The beauty 
and variety of the pendent stalactites often arrested 
our attention, as they glittered in the light of our 
tapers ; and we were amused in tracing the fan- 
tastic forms assumed by the stalagmite, as it had 
settled on the sides or floor of the passage. It 
frequently wore the appearance of the rough and 
thick hide of the elephant, and not seldom re- 
sembled that animal's ears. 
r2 



370 THE CAVERN. 

" At length we reached the hall of the cavern, 
a spacious cavity, where, till of late, silence had 
sat enthroned during four thousand years, and 
where her leaden sceptre had not yet lost all its 
power ; for the first inclination of the mind on 
entering this hall, was to gaze around in mute 
admiration. The roof consisted of vast masses of 
rock, thrown into an apparently loose arch, by 
the hand of the Creator, and which, though they 
had retained their position for so many centuries, 
seemed momentarily to threaten a fall. The 
farmer had lighted up the hall, with candles fixed 
in different parts, which added much to the effect 
of the scene. But that which more than all 
attracted our notice, and called into incessant 
play the garrulity of our guide, was the immense 
quantities of animal remains which crowded the 
cavern. When first opened, it was nearly filled 
with a rich loam, thickly interspersed with the 
bones of numerous animals, and many cart-loads 
of which had been taken out. The floor of the 
hall was still composed of the same materials, and 
had been examined to the depth of thirty feet, 
without finding a bottom. Two or three of our 
party descended into a large cavity in one corner, 
where the loose mass of loam and bones, to the 
weight of many tons, seemed to need only a breath 
to entomb alive the adventurous traveller. We 
were both amused, and had our thoughts set 



THE CAVERN. 371 

busily afloat, by observing, that our guide had 
made candlesticks for the tapers that illumined 
the hall, out of the bones of the antediluvian 
animals, which had found their tomb in that 
cavern. Here was a candle in the eye-socket of a 
buffalo, there in that of an elk. In one spot was 
a row of wolf's and fox's bones ; in another, those 
of horses and oxen ; while elsewhere were seen 
the jaw-bones and horns of deer, and other cor- 
niferous animals, which had their being in the 
world before the flood. It seemed like the charnel 
house of a former world, though the bones had all 
the freshness of recent slaughter. Speculation 
was ready to inquire, whether this had been the 
retreat of beasts of prey, whose spoils were now 
around us : or whether the cavern had been once 
open above, and had proved a pit-fall to the 
animals of the surrounding country ; or whether 
it had been their retreat and grave when the rising 
deluge drove them from the plains. There was no 
record of their history to be traced upon the walls 
of their cemetery ; and to every repetition of the 
question, ' Whence came they ? ' echo only re- 
plied, * Whence came they ? ■ Of this, however, 
on retiring from the cavern, we carried away a 
deepened conviction, that the Mosaic history of 
the flood is no cunningly devised fable. This, and 
numerous other similar cavities, in our own and 
other countries, proclaim the truth of the Holy 



372 THE CAVERN. 

Scriptures : and it requires not a Samson to 
seize and wield the jaw-bone of one of these 
antediluvian animals ; it will equally avail in 
the hand of a child, to slay the Philistines of 
infidelity. 

" ' In His hand are the deep places of the earth/ 
and we owe it to his wisdom and goodness, that 
these cavernous archives of ancient and most 
important historical documents are now being 
successively laid open to the researches of men of 
science. But while irrefragable proofs are thence 
drawn in support of the Inspired records, con- 
cerning the deluge, let us hope, that our scientific 
men will imitate the philosophical modesty and 
Christian humility of our great Newton, as well 
as his bold, yet safe and calculated steps in ex- 
perimental philosophy. Before new systems are 
built up, the erection of which may shake, if it 
does not overturn the faith of ordinary or feeble 
minds in the unmixed truth of the Holy Scriptures, 
let us wait ' till the further progress of geological 
science shall have afforded us more ample in- 
formation as to the structure of our globe, and 
have supplied those data, without which, all 
opinions that can be advanced on the subject 
must be premature, and amount to no more than 
plausible conjecture.' 41 

41 See Professor Buckland's Reliquiae DiluviaNjE. p. 47, 






THE CAVERN. 373 

" Comparatively few of these ' deep places of 
the earth' have as yet been unlocked : but they 
are all in the hand of Jehovah, and perhaps he 
designedly keeps them closed, till a more humble 
and implicit faith in his own word shall have 
prepared the minds of men generally, for the 
developements which shall hereafter be made. 
While one generation is blowing bubbles for the 
next to break, God may be smiling at human folly, 
misnamed wisdom, and may purpose hereafter 
fully to open his all-comprehensive hand ; reveal 
the secrets of the earth ; and explain all the 
phenomena of nature, to the confusion and de- 
struction of infidelity, and to the honour and 
confirmation of his faithful word." 



CHAPTER XXIX 



THE STORM. 



Wednesday evening was spent at Mr. Wil- 
loughby's, and Pascal Hamilton brought out a 
paper, to which he had given the title of 

THE STORM. 

Here, hostile elements tumultuous rise, 
And lawless floods rebel against the skies, 
'Till hope expires, and peril and dismay 
Wave their black ensigns on the wat'ry way. 

Falconer. 

" It is remarkable, considering how little the 
Jewish people were conversant with maritime 
affairs, that the Holy Scriptures should abound, 
as they do, with marine imagery. But they con- 
stitute a volume designed for the instruction, not 
of one nation only, but of all the families of the 



THE STORM. 375 

earth, and for man in all the diversified circum- 
stances of his temporal being. They are, there- 
fore, written in a style, not exclusively calculated 
to interest and inform one class, or a few classes 
of mankind, but comprehending enough to arrest 
and hold the attention of all. The mariner, 
as well as the husbandman, when turning over 
the Holy Book of God, perceives and admires the 
wisdom and goodness of its divine Author, in 
adapting much of its rich and abundant imagery, 
to his own most frequent ideas and associations. 
Of these ideas and associations, perhaps the most 
numerous, and certainly the most impressive, are 
such as arise from the sea when in a tumult uated 
state ; and, accordingly, He who seeth the end 
from the beginning, and who foresaw how large a 
portion of the future generations of men would be 
' dwellers on the sea/ or intimately connected 
with maritime pursuits, has interspersed through 
the Sacred Volume, very frequent allusions to the 
mighty waters, when agitated by storms. Let us 
endeavour to bring these allusions together, and 
connect them with some illustrative and instruc- 
tive remarks. 

" ' They that go down to the sea in ships, that 
do business in great waters; these see the works 
of the Lord, and his wonders in the.deep. For he 
commandeth and raiseth the stormy wind, which 
lifteth up the waves thereof. They mount up to 



376 THE STORM. 

the heaven, they go down again to the depths ; 
their soul is melted because of trouble. They reel 
to and fro, and stagger like a drunken man, and 
are at their wit's end. Then they cry unto the 
Lord in their trouble, and he bringeth them out of 
their distresses. He maketh the storm a calm, so 
that the waves thereof are still. Then are they 
glad, because they be quiet ; so he bringeth them 
unto their desired haven. Oh ! that men would 
praise the Lord for his goodness, and for his won- 
derful works to the children of men/ 

" Had we never seen the ocean in any other 
than a state of tranquillity, we should scarcely 
believe the possibility, or credit any description of 
its being convulsed and disordered, to the degree 
which we occasionally witness. What an august 
view is here exhibited of the omnipotence of 
Jehovah ! He breathes upon the peaceful waters 
as they slumber in deep calm within the hollow of 
his hand, and at first they appear slightly ruffled. 
Now, ' the blackening ocean curls ' into billows, 
which soon swell from the gentle undulation, on 
which the curlew slumbers, to the surge, which 
emulates the mountains in height and width. 
Every wave, to use the emphatical phrase of 
sailors, is ' a sea/ The sun's last watery ray 
struggles between the heavy clouds, ** and the 

42 " Some t>f the soldiers near me having remarked that the sun 
was setting, I looked round, and never, can I forget the feelings with 



THE STORM. 377 

quickly succeeding night, without moon or stars, 
resembles the darkness of Egypt — a darkness 
which might be felt. Sails, rigging, yards, and 
masts, are quickly strewn over the angry tide, 
while one, and then another hapless mariner is 
swept into the abyss, and seen no more. 

Cimmerian darkness shades the deep around; 
Save when the lightnings, gleaming on the sight, 
Flash through the gloom a pale, disastrous light. 
Above, all ether, fraught with scenes of woe, 
With grim destruction threatens all below : 
Beneath, the storm-lash'd surges furious rise, 
And wave uproll'd on wave assails the skies. 

' They mount up to the heaven, they go down 
again to the depths : — they reel to and fro, and stag- 

which I regarded his declining rays. I had previously felt deeply 
impressed with the conviction that the ocean was to be my bed that 
night ; and had, I imagined, sufficiently realized to my mind, both 
the last struggles and the cdnsequences of death. But as I continued 
solemnly watching the departing beams of the sun, the thought that 
it was really the very last I should ever behold, gradually expanded 
into reflections, tifcte most tremendous in their import. — It was not, I 
am persuaded; eifeer the retrospect of a most unprofitable life, or 
the direct fear of death, or of judgment, that occupied my mind at 
the period I allude to; but abroad, illimitable view of eternity 
itself. I know not whither the thought would have hurried me, had 
I not speedily seized, as with the grasp of death, on some of those 
sweet promises of the Gospel, which give to an immortal existence 
its only charms ; and that naturally enough led back my thoughts, by 
means of the brilliant object before me, to the contemplation of that 
' blessed city, which hath no need of the sun, neither of the moon, 
to shine in it ; for the glory of G od doth lighten it, and the Lamb is 
the light thereof.' " Loss of the Kent. 



378 THE STORM. 

ger like a drunken man, and are at their wit's end.' 
The vessel no longer obeys the ■ regent helm/ 
and the whole mass of waters may seem, to an 
unestablished mind, to be equally beyond all con- 
troul. But no : the infuriated waves, which 
appear to have completely thrown off the yoke of 
any superior power, are, in fact, as perfectly under 
the sway of Jehovah, in the midst of this wild 
disorder, as when they are calm, * like a molten 
looking-glass.' These are ' the works of the 
Lord, and his wonders in the deep/ and blessed 
and safe in the midst of his perils, is the mariner 
who ' sees' it with the eye of faith. While the 
helm of his vessel, perhaps, is broken in his own 
hand, and he may appear to be abandoned to the 
blind mercy of the winds and tides, he has been 
taught to believe that it is Jehovah who com- 
mandeth and raiseth the stormy wind, which 
lifteth up the waves. He seems to hear the voice 
of the Lord upon the waters, issuing his commands. 
* The God of glory thundereth ; the Lord is upon 
many waters. The voice of the Lord is powerful ; 
the voice of the Lord is full of majesty.' 43 He 
perceives tha't it is not chance, but the arm of the 
Lord which raiseth the stormy wind, and thereby, 
as with a lever, lifteth up to their terrific height, 
the ambitious waves. He knows that his Lord 

43 Psalm xxix. 3, 4. 



THE STORM. 379 

and Saviour presides ; that he hath * his way in 
the whirlwind and in the storm ; ' and that ' the 
clouds are the dust of his feet.' 

" Nor need ■ they who go down to the sea in 
ships, and do business in great waters' inquire, 
[ Is thy wrath against the sea ? M While, by the 
agitation of the elements, God, as the Ruler of 
nature, carries on his benevolent purposes, and 
promotes the salubrity of the globe, he also, as 
the Moral Governor of the world, prosecutes his 
purposes of judgment or mercy towards his intel- 
ligent creatures. There are great moral and 
spiritual ends answered by every storm that rages 
upon the ocean. Faith is called into exercise in 
the believer ; decayed impressions are revived and 
strengthened in the backslider; and alarm is 
spread through the souls of the careless and pro- 
fane. In such circumstances, it behoves every 
man to make instant and faithful inquiry into the 
probable design of the Almighty, in thus surround- 
ing him with dismay and peril. When Jonah was 
awaked from his slumber by the terrified mariners 
of Tarshish, conscious of guilt, he immediately 
perceived and acknowledged, why 'the sea wrought 
and was tempestuous.' ' I know,' said the self- 
condemning prophet, f that for my sake this great 
tempest is upon you/ Most men, in this situation, 

44 Hab. iii. 8, 



380 THE STORM. 

recognize the presence of the Lord God of heaven 
and earth, though with every possible variety of 
emotion, and in some way or other betake them- 
selves to 'the Invisible.' The affecting narrative 
of the loss of the Kent, which I have before 
quoted, affords an instance in point. 

" c The scene of horror that presented itself 
baffles all description. The upper deck was 
covered with between six and seven hundred 
human beings, many of whom were forced, on the 
first alarm, to flee from below, in a state of absolute 
nakedness, and were now running about, in quest 
of husbands, children, or parents. While some 
were standing in resignation, or insensibility, 
others were yielding to the most frantic despair. 
Some, on their knees, were earnestly imploring, 
with noisy supplications, the mercy of Him, whose 
arm, they exclaimed, was at length outstretched 
to smite them ; others were hastily crossing them- 
selves, and performing the various external acts 
required by their peculiar persuasions. Several of 
the soldiers' wives and children, who were in the 
after-cabins on the upper decks, were engaged in 
prayer, and in reading the Scriptures with the 
ladies, some of whom were enabled, with wonder- 
ful self-possession, to offer to others those spiritual 
consolations, which a firm and intelligent trust in 
the Redeemer of the world appeared at this awful 
hour to impart to their own breasts. 



THE STORM. 381 

" * One young gentleman, having calmly asked 
me my opinion respecting the state of the ship, I 
told him, I thought we should be prepared to 
sleep that night in eternity ; and I shall never 
forget the peculiar fervour with which he replied, 
as he pressed my hand to his, ' My heart is filled 
with the peace of God ; ' adding, * yet, though I 
know it is foolish, I dread exceedingly the last 
struggle/ 

" ' At this period, I was much affected with 
some of the dear children, who, quite unconscious 
in the cabins, of the perils that surrounded them, 
continued to play as usual with their little toys in 
bed, or to put the most innocent and unseasonable 
questions to those around them. To some of the 
older children, who seemed fully alive to the re- 
ality of the danger, I whispered, * Now is the time to 
put in practice the instruction you used to receive 
at the Regimental-school, and to think of that 
Saviour of whom you have heard so much ? They 
replied, as the tears ran down their cheeks, ' O, 
sir, we are trying to remember them, and we are 
praying to God.' 

" Now, if never before, ' their soul is melted 
because of trouble/ Now, even if the language 
of prayer has previously been far from their lips, 
' they cry unto the Lord/ What a comment is 
this upon the weakness and dependency of man, 
and the omnipotence and supremacy of God ! 



382 THE STORM. 

These attributes, in unison with his goodness, are 
strikingly illustrated by the facts, that not one in 
five hundred of the vessels exposed to the fury of 
every tempest is wrecked, and that of the ship- 
wrecked crews, few comparatively perish. ' He 
bringeth them Out of their distresses/ The 
greatest ' wonders of the deep' are to be read in 
the book of providence. The foaming surge, 
which threatens to ingulf the vessel, lifts her over 
a hidden rock, and sets her afloat in a land-locked 
harbour. The flash of lightning, which kindles 
her top-mast, makes timely discovery of a lee- 
shore. The wind continues in a favourable 
quarter to secure the arrival of a leaky vessel, or a 
famishing crew on board a crowded ship, and 
then within an hour veers to the opposite point of 
the compass. One bark is forcibly driven out of her 
course by contrary winds, to afford relief to another 
in the last extremity of distress. The boats, to 
which a crew has resorted as their forlorn hope, are 
preserved amidst seas, in which their ship has 
foundered. The heavens become clear, the winds 
subside, the waters are tranquillized, just at the 
very time, when human skill and human strength 
have spent their last effort. ' The Lord maketh 
the storm a calm, so that the waves thereof are 
still.' This is as entirely the work of God, though 
in the ordinary way of his providence, as the 
miraculous instance recorded in three of the 



THE STORM. 383 

biographical sketches of our blessed Lord's history, 
given us by the pens of his Evangelists. ' When 
he was entered into a ship, his disciples followed 
him. And, behold, there arose a great tempest in 
the sea, insomuch that the ship was covered with 
the waves : but he was asleep. And his disciples 
came to him and awoke him, saying, Lord, save 
us ! we perish ! And he saith unto them, Why 
are ye fearful, O ye of little faith ? Then he 
arose, and rebuked the winds and the sea ; and 
there was a great calm. But the men marvelled, 
saying, What manner of man is this, that even 
the winds and the sea obey him ? ' 

Sic ait, et dicto citius tumida aequora placat ; 
Collectasque fugat nubes, solemque reducit. 

jEn. I. 142. 

" O Saviour ! that voice of thine, which then 
rebuked the stormy wind and the raging sea, 
though uttered by human lips, was divine ; and 
thy form, as thou stoodest upon the vessel's brink, 
though the form of man, reflected a divine ma- 
jesty upon the tumultuated waters, and, like oil 
poured upon the waves, produced a settled and 
smiling calm. Very similar are thy dealings with 
thy people amidst those afflictions which are the 
storms of life. It is at thy command that the 
tempest often bursts upon a domestic scene, or 



384 THE STORM. 

upon an individual mind, which had before re- 
sembled the unruffled bosom of a lake, surrounded 
by the everlasting hills, like that of Tiberias ; as in 
the case of the venerable Job, who exclaimed, in 
the bitterness of his soul, ' He breaketh me with 
a tempest!' It is at thy command that wave 
follows wave in rapid succession, until the over- 
whelmed spirit cries ' Deep calleth unto deep, at 
the noise of thy water spouts ; all thy waves and 
thy billows are gone over me.' Then, having 
reduced the soul to perfect self-despair, and distrust 
of all human help ; when the soul is, as it were, 
melted ; and the conscious sinner lies at thy feet, 
asking in anguish, ' Master, carest thou not that 
we perish ? ' — thou, O Lord, rememberest thy 
compassions and thy promises, and thy afflicted 
ones hear thee, saying, in thy word, and by the 
still, small voice of thy Spirit, * Peace ! be still ! ' 
' O thou afflicted, tossed with tempests, and not 
comforted ! — for a small moment have I forsaken 
thee ; but with great mercies will I gather thee. 
In a little wrath, I hid my face from thee for a 
moment ; but with everlasting kindness will I 
have mercy on thee, saith the Lord, thy Redeemer. 
For this is as the waters of Noah unto me : for, as 
I have sworn that the waters of Noah shall no 
more go over the earth ; so have I sworn that I 
would not be wroth with thee, nor rebuke thee. 
For the mountains shall depart, and the hills be 



THE STORM. 385 

removed ; but my kindness shall not depart from 
thee, neither shall the covenant of my peace be 
removed, saith the Lord, that hath mercy on 
thee/ 

" The joy of seamen, when a storm has*passed, 
and left them in safety, images the exultation of 
the servants of God, when ' the stormy wind, ful- 
filling his word, ' has accomplished its errand, and 
they find themselves secure in the enjoyment of 
his favour and protection. ' Then are they glad, 
because they be quiet ; so he bringeth them unto 
their desired haven.' May this gladness, amount- 
ing, even on earth, to 'joy unspeakable and full of 
glory,' be ours, through a consciousness of being 
at peace with God, through our Lord Jesus Christ. 
As mariners, on the termination of a long, event- 
ful, and tempestuous voyage, are joyfully hailed 
on shore, by expectant and affectionate relatives 
and friends, so may we be welcomed to the realms 
of eternal peace, by those who have arrived before 
us, or who have never sojourned in any other 
clime." 

During the conversation, to which this paper 
gave rise, the Vicar, with a smile, observed, that 
it was not to be expected that all the party were 
acquainted with the learned languages, and he 
therefore desired Theophilus to give them a version 
of his brother's Latin quotation. 



386 THE STORM. 

Theophilus readily complied with his father's 
request, and in a few minutes presented him with 
these lines, at the same time making an apology 
for their poor pretensions to acceptance, in com- 
parison with the terse beauty of the original 
hexameters. 

" He speaks ! and sooner than he speaks, the seas, 
Swoll'n by the storm, his awful looks appease : 
He drives the gather'd clouds of heav'n to flight, 
And to his throne restores the God of light." 



The evening was closed with family prayer, 
Mr. Willoughby deeming it a privilege not to be 
neglected, to enjoy the kind assistance of his 
friend and pastor, at his domestic altar. After 
they had risen from the posture and act of sup- 
plication, they sang the well known hymn of 
Dr. Watts. 



When I can read my title clear 

To mansions in the skies, 
I bid farewell to every fear, 

And wipe my weeping eyes. 

Should earth against my soul engage, 
And hellish darts be hurl'd, 

Then I can smile at Satan's rage, 
And face a frowning world. 



THE STORM. 387 



Let cares like a wild deluge come, 
And storms of sorrow fall ; 

May I but safely reach my home, 
My God, my heav'n, my all ! 

There shall I bathe my weary soul, 

In seas of heav'nly rest, 
And not a wave of trouble roll 

Across my peaceful breast. 



CHAPTER XXX 



JESUS ON THE SEA. 



The only production of the subsequent day, 
was a copy of simple verses from the pen of Julia, 
who read them while her family and friends took 
a temporary rest, during an afternoon ramble 
along the sands. 

JESUS ON THE SEA. 

Dark, and darker low'rs the sky — 

{ There is sorrow on the sea/ 
As it foams in anger by, 

Swelling — rolling heavily. 

Tis the midnight watch : no star 
Glimmers through the rayless dark ; 

No red beacon from afar, 
Guides our solitary bark. 

Now it strikes the sunken rock ; — 

Now it floats above the cloud, 
Reeling to the tempest's shock, 

As it breaks in wrath, and loud. 



JESUS ON THE SEA. 389 

Adverse blows the fitful gale ; 

Shelt'ring bay nor port is near ; 
Human skill and vigour fail ; 

Hope resigns her throne to fear. 

Lo ! amidst the raging storm, 

Cloth'd in majesty serene, 
Some divine, unearthly form 

Traversing the wave is seen. 

' Is it from the realms of death ? ' 

Is it from the world unknown ? 
Ask we, while each panting breath 

Labours with a bursting groan. 

Lo ! it nears the vessel's side, 

Pacing the deep-furrow'd wave : 
Hark ! — our frantic spirits cried, 

1 Comes it to destroy or save?' 

Hark ! — it is no earthly voice : — 

i Be encourag'd ! It is I ! 
i Fear not ; but believe — rejoice ! 

* I have brought salvation ni^h.' 

Saviour ! Lord ! and can it be ? 

Is it thy dear voice I hear ? 
Bid me come, O Lord, to thee : 

I can tread the waves, nor fear. 

* Come ! ' — But, lo ! the boist'rous wind 
Ploughs my pathway, deep and wide : 

Onward, down, above, behind, 
Fierce and fiercer roars the tide. 



390 JESUS ON THE SEA. 

Save, O save me, Lord ; I sink 
Far beneath the yawning wave ! 

1 Even from destruction's brink, 
' Am I not at hand to save ? 

' Fearful, faithless, look — believe !' 
Lord, I feel thy grasping hand ; 

Thankfully thy help receive ; 
Firmly on the billows stand. 

Walk I now on Hood, or shore, 
On the calm, or stormy tide, 

I will trust myself no more, 
But in Thee alone confide. 

Only through the tempest's sway, 
Let me see thee walking nigh : 

Only let me hear thee say, 

' Fear not — doubt not — it is I.' 






CHAPTER XXXI 



EVENING. 



On the next opportunity, which occurred after 
the Hamiltons and Willoughbys had returned 
from a delightful walk on Friday evening, Louisa 
read a new paper, on an appropriate subject. It 
was this. 

" There are few scenes which do not appear to 
the greatest advantage in the evening. The 
massive ruins of feudal grandeur and power — the 
impregnable keep — the buttressed walls — the or- 
namented chapel — ' the embattled portal arch/ 

Whose pond'rous grate and massy bar 
Have oft roll'd back the tide of war, 

decorated as they frequently are, with simple 
flowers, which time has sown with one hand, 
while with the other he has carried on his work 
of destruction, may, indeed, be seen with most 
effect at the earliest hour of the day : and buildings 



392 EVENING. 

of an exclusively religious order, at the latest 
hour. 

If thou would'st view fair Melrose aright, 

Go, visit it by the pale moon-light ; 

For the gay beams of lightsome day 

Gild, but to flout, the ruins gray. 

When the broken arches are black in night, 

And each shafted oriel glimmers white ; 

When the cold light's uncertain shower 

Streams on the ruined central tower : 

When buttress and buttress, alternately, 

Seem framed of ebon and ivory ; 

When silver edges the imagery, 

And the scrolls that teach thee to live and die ; 

When distant Tweed is heard to rave, 

And the owlet to hoot o'er the dead man's grave, 

Then go — but go alone the while — 

Then view St. David's ruin'd pile. 

Walter Scott. 

" But it is the evening which most attractively 
invests the generality of objects. The softness of 
the lights and shades, the air of repose resting 
upon all things, and the sympathy with the aspect 
of nature, felt by both the human frame and mind 
at the close of day, combine to render this the 
most suitable season for contemplating natural 
scenery, and especially that which is found in the 
vicinity of large lakes, or seas. None, who have 
visited the coast at the fall of the year, can have 



EVENING. 393 

failed to remark, and consciously feel, the exquisite 
and incomparable beauties of our autumnal even- 
ings by the sea. It is not, however, in the soothing 
melancholy of mere sentimentalism, nor in that 
abstractedness or vacancy of thought, which bor- 
ders upon practical atheism, nor in that romantic 
and vagrant play of the imagination, which is the 
chief employment of an undisciplined, or the re- 
creation of a studious mind, that the Christian 
will delightedly indulge. When, like Isaac, he 
goes forth to meditate at even-tide, he will pray 
that the Spirit of peace and love may descend 
upon his soul, and impart a heavenly character 
and influence to the impressions made by the 
material world. He will be careful not to fall 
into the too common error, of mistaking those 
impressions for something more than earthly : nor 
to pace the fashionable and thronged esplanade, 
or the smooth and more retired sands, or the rocky 
pathway that overhangs the sea, with a conscious 
and haughty superiority over others, and the self- 
complacency, which is apt to be fostered, if not 
produced, by the possession of any degree of refined 
taste, or a capacity for enjoying the calm delights 
of nature. He will ask himself : ' Does the state 
of my soul harmonize with the pervading influence 
of this hour, and these scenes ? The heavens, 
the seas, and the lands, repose in mutual peace. 
Is there peace between my soul and heaven ? 
s 2 



394 EVENING. 

Though I cannot, and dare not look back upon a 
day or an hour with self-satisfaction, is faith in 
exercise upon the work of rny Saviour, which, at 
an hour resembling this, received the seal of com- 
pleteness, as He exclaimed, It is finished? 
Am I laying open my heart to the visits of his 
Spirit, and the power of his word, so that, amidst 
the stillness of the evening, I may seem to hear 
Him say, and say with mild but efficient power, 
' My peace I give unto you' ? Are my thoughts 
joyfully carried forward, as it were, upon the last 
lingering beams of the sun that has now set, to 
the last evening of my life, when that sun shall 
set to rise upon my grave, and when I hope that 
I shall become the inhabitant of a world, whose 
sun shall never go down ? Am I likely to be able 
to say, with my final breath, in answer to the 
inquiries of Christian friends — Peace ! All is 
well ! ' 

" One, in this manner affected, might not unaptly 
thus express his sentiments on the 

EVENING, 

Theiie is a smile of heav'n upon the sea, 
That lies, as molten gold, serene and bright, 

In its vast mould, wide, fathomless, and free 

From storm, or curling breeze : a flood of light, 

Whose ev'ry drop is gold, spreads o'er the height 
Of the far western sky : each skirting hill 

In massive purple rises on the sight : 



EVENING. 395 

All, save the tinkling fold, and murm'ring rill, 
Seems spell-bound with delight, deep, meditative, still. 

The day is number'd on the roll of time, 
With all its centuries of reckon'd years ; 

The sun is gone to light another clime, 

And beam on other eyes, through smiles or tears : 
Pale, o'er the southern wave, the moon appears, 

Leading her train of stars, that meekly shine 
In modest splendour in their distant spheres : 

The ev'ning breathes a fragrance all divine, 

And whispers in the ear sounds soothing and benign. 

At such an hour, how blest the pensive soul, 

To yield, in placid thought, like the lone bird, 
Which floats upon the waves, that calmly roll, 

Scarce murm'ring to the shore, unbroke, unheard : 

So, resting on the all-sustaining word 
My thoughts repose, till faith and hope take Hight 

To where yon village spire points, heav'nward, 
The lofty realms of everlasting light, 
Lost in adoring love, and never-clouded sight. 

Saviour ! the hour is thine : no other name 
Be heard these rocks and rural glades among : 

Here let the sea-breeze fan my bosom's flame, 
And silence echo to my soft-ton'd song : 
To thee, dear Lord of all, my strains belong ; 

Thy Spirit taught them, and thy word supplied : 
Ye cliffs, ye shores, ye waves, the notes prolong, — 

The song's sole burden this, that Jesus died ! 

Oh ! waft the story far o'er ocean's azure tide ! 



396 EVENING. 

Ah ! come That Day, by prophets long foretold. 

And sung by ev'ry bard from heav'n inspir'd : 
On ev'ry shore, whereon these tides are roll'd, 

Chill'd by the Arctic — by the Tropic fir'd, 

At ev'ning hour, from healthy toil retir'd, 
The youth shall wander, and the sage recline, 

To meditate on Thee, belov'd, desir'd ! 
Ponder thy beauties in the page divine, 
And see thy glorious form in nature's mirror shine." 

Louisa. 



Louisa was on the point of apologizing for the 
mediocrity of her performance, but her father, 
with a silencing smile, began to read from a daily 
paper, some very interesting particulars respecting 
a ship-launch, and then asked Theophilus, if he 
could not produce a lyric poem of Dr. Watts's, on 
an analagous subject. Theophilus speedily found, 
and read the poem. 

LAUNCHING INTO ETERNITY. 

It was a brave attempt ! adventurous he, 
Who in the first ship broke the unknown sea, 
And leaving his dear native shores behind, 
Trusted his life to the licentious wind. 
I see the surging brine : the tempest raves : 
He on a pine plank rides across the waves, 
Exulting on the edge of thousand gaping graves : 
He steers the winged boat, and shifts the sails, 
Conquers the flood, and manages the gales. 



EVENING. 397 

Such is the soul that leaves this mortal land, 
Fearless, when the great Master gives command. 
Death is the storm : she smiles to hear it roar, 
And bids the tempest waft her from the shore : 
Then with a skilful helm she sweeps the seas, 
And manages the raging storm with ease ; 
Her faith can govern death ! — she spreads her wings 
Wide to the wind, and as she sails she sings, 
And loses by degrees the sight of mortal things. 
As the shores lessen, so her joys arise ; 
The waves roll gentler, and the tempest dies : 
How vast eternity fills all her sight ! 
She floats on the broad deep with infinite delight, 
The seas for ever calm, the skies for ever bright. 

Watts. 



CHAPTER XXXII. 



THE DEPTHS OF PROVIDENCE. 



The last Sunday evening spent by our two 
families by the sea, was improved, as before, by a 
social service at Mr. Willoughby's, where also a 
few other select friends were invited to attend. 
The passing votaries of pleasure may have smiled 
contemptuously, but angels smiled with compla- 
cent delight, and the Lord of angels and of saints 
smiled with approving love, when the little com- 
pany surrounded the social altar, and sang the 
well-known hymn of the Christian poet, which 
commences with 

God moves in a mysterious way 

His wonders to perform ; 
He plants his footsteps in the sea, 

And rides upon the storm. 

The Rev. Mr. Hamilton then opened the Sacred 
Volume ; and, having read the Thirty-sixth Psalm, 



THE DEPTHS OF PROVIDENCE. 399 

offered the following remarks upon part of the 
sixth verse, which, at his request, he after- 
wards wrote out, and gave to his friend Mr. 
Willoughby. 

THY JUDGMENTS ARE A GREAT DEEP. 

" We are not to be surprised, that the operations 
of Providence largely partake of the unfathomable 
mysteriousness of the divine character itself. 
They would otherwise want the stamp of divinity. 
In reference to these, we may, therefore, ask the 
question, which Zophar put to Job, respecting 
Jehovah himself. ' Canst thou by searching find 
out God ? Canst thou find out the Almighty to 
perfection ? It is high as heaven, what canst thou 
do ? Deeper than hell, what canst thou know ? 
The measure thereof is longer than the earth, and 
broader than the sea.' 

" The counsels of the divine mind, in which all 
the operations of Providence originate, partake of 
the same nature, and are spoken of in similar 
language by the inspired writers — language, which 
cannot fail of being frequently brought to the 
remembrance, and pressed upon the consideration 
of sojourners by the sea-side. In the ' Psalm for 
the Sabbath-day/ the devout soul is thus aided 
in the utterance of its reflections upon this subject. 
' Lord, how great are they works ! and thy 



400 THE DEPTHS OF PROVIDENCE. 

thoughts are very deep. A brutish man knoweth 
not : neither doth a fool understand this.' It ap- 
pears, then, to be one mark of folly closely allied 
to the stupidity of brutes, to remain contentedly 
ignorant of the mysterious depths of the counsels 
of the Most High, or to conceive of them as re- 
sembling those of shallow-minded mortals : like 
children, who would as heedlessly play upon the 
verge of an unfathomable gulf, as upon the mar- 
gin of a rippling brook. On the contrary, it is 
the mark of wisdom to entertain a humble and 
adoring reverence for the ' deep thoughts' of God. 
This was the prevalent sentiment of St. Paul's 
mind, when he exclaimed, in language familiar to 
all who have imbibed his spirit, ' O the depths 
of the riches, both of the wisdom and knowledge 
of God ! How unsearchable are his judgments, 
and his ways past rinding out ! For who hath 
known the mind of the Lord, or who hath been 
his counsellor ? ' Doubtless, there are counsels in 
the divine mind, lying far too deep for even the 
first-born and most gifted of the angelic family 
of God, to reach and comprehend. The being 
who stands highest in the scale of created intelli- 
gences, is but finite ; and how can the finite 
comprehend the infinite ? 

" The results of these ' deep thoughts ' of God, 
appearing in the arrangements and works of his 
providence, are often, if not always equally pro- 



THE DEPTHS OF PROVIDENCE. 401 

found. Questions may arise out of the simplest 
of those arrangements, and out of the lowest of 
those works, which no mind of man can solve. 
How humble, then, should be the spirit, in which 
we conduct our inquiries, and how implicit our faith 
in the principles of that divine government of all 
things, which must be righteous, although it may 
be inexplicable. We say, ' the divine government 
of all things/ because ' all are but parts of one 
stupendous whole.'. The parts may be minute, and 
exceeding the powers of either human calculation 
or penetration : like the inconceivably minute 
drops or particles which make up the ocean. So 
the judgments of God are a ' great deep/ and 
constitute one grand whole. 

" How comparatively few of the particulars of 
God's providence come within the observation of 
the most considerate mind ! ' Lo, these are parts 
of his ways : but how little a portion is heard of 
him ! ' If we attempt to survey the entire field of 
His sway, * whose kingdom ruleth over all,' we 
are soon lost in the immensity of the vision. We 
are fully assured of the fact, that the immediate 
superintendence of God reaches over all the worlds 
which his hands have made, and that his flat is 
obeyed in the most distant places of creation — in the 
lowest depths of that universe which he has filled 
with being. Not that any are really distant from 
him. The innumerable multitude of worlds roll 



402 THE DEPTHS OF PROVIDENCE. 

around his footstool, and are comprehended within 
the circle described by his sceptre. Not a leaf of 
the forest, nor a drop of the ocean, nor a thought 
in the recesses of the bosom of any intelligent being, 
can move but in subordination to his will. The 
heights of heaven and the abyss of hell, hear, and 
are controlled by his judgments. But how aw- 
fully profound those judgments remain, to all but 
his own great mind ! 

" It has pleased God to bind up, in the volume 
which records his revelations to man, and his 
dealings with our race, a fragment or two from the 
volume of his higher dispensations. In these we 
discover the first glimpse afforded to man of the 
dreadful abyss of moral evil, into which incal- 
culable multitudes of creatures, originally made 
capable of knowing, serving, and enjoying God, 
have plunged each other and themselves. If, 
then, we venture upon the consideration of the 
origin of sin, and proceed to view the separation 
it occasioned in the unseen world ; if we contem- 
plate the upholding of the heavenly hosts in their 
allegiance to the King of kings, and meditate 
upon the perfection of their bliss ; and if we 
advance to the brink of the bottomless pit, and 
gaze with trembling awe upon ' the angels who 
kept not their first estate, but left their own habi- 
tation, and whom the Judge of all hath reserved 
in everlasting chains under darkness, unto the 



THE DEPTHS OF PROVIDENCE. 403 

judgment of the great day ; ' must we not subse- 
quently retire with the sentiment of the Psalmist 
upon our hearts and lips, f Thy judgments are a 
great deep ! *? And will not this sentiment become 
more weightily impressive, if we ponder over the 
history of our own race? Here, again, the devout 
soul will be constrained with humble solemnity to 
exclaim, * Thy way is in the sea ; and thy path 
in the great waters ; and thy footsteps are not 
known ! ' How * deep are the judgments of God,' 
whereby the hosts of darkness were still left to 
range abroad in search of opportunities of spread- 
ing the destructive plague of sin, by which they 
had been exiled from the heavenly city ! How 
mysteriously was the Prince of darkness permitted 
to bring within the noisome shadow of his wing 
our newly-created world ! But far deeper than 
the judgment of wrath, which kindled the flames 
of hell for the devil and his angels, was the judg- 
ment of love, which devised and executed the 
stupendous scheme of human redemption. How 
deep was that thought of mercy, and that stretch 
of power, which interposed between man and utter 
ruin ! ' In this was manifested the love of God 
towards us, because that God sent his only begot- 
ten Son into the world, that we might live through 
him.' Goodness is an essential attribute of the 
divine nature ; but the dispensation of the Holy 
One, on which, above all others, happy spirits in 



404 THE DEPTHS OF PROVIDENCE. 

his beatific presence will bestow the admiration of 
eternity, is the salvation of sinners of mankind, 
by the obedience unto death of his incarnate Son. 
Thy judgments of mercy are a great deep ! 

"Look we at God's general government of the 
world, since the fall of man, and the revelation of 
a Saviour ? What a depth in the divine opera- 
tions do we again behold ! Trace them from the 
brief memorial of Adam's first born, to the succinct 
records of the deluge : from the sacrifice on 
Mount Ararat, to the call of Abraham : from the 
hour of that Patriarch's separation from an idola- 
trous world, down through the history of his 
descendants, to the advent of the promised ' Seed 
of the Woman : ' read the extant records of polished 
nations, and listen to the traditionary narratives of 
the ruder and larger masses of mankind ; over 
what dark and fearful depths do we shape our 
course ! All the movements of nations, savage or 
polite; all the schemes of politicians, in the hut, 
or in the senate-house; all the achievements of 
warriors, clothed in the tawny lion's skin, or the 
imperial purple, have passed under the directive 
or permissive government of Him, who ' sitteth 
upon the circle of the earth, and the inhabitants 
thereof are as grasshoppers/ Yet what line of 
human comprehension can fathom the ' deep 
judgments,' which have ruled and operated alike 
in the secret plans and overt acts of men — of men 



THE DEPTHS OF PROVIDENCE. 405 

too, who, in general knew nothing of God. ' Thus 
saith the Lord to his anointed, to Cyrus, whose 
right hand I have holdcn to subdue nations before 
him : and I will loose the loins of kings, to open 
before him the two-leaved gates, and the gates 
shall not be shut. I will go before thee, and 
make the crooked places straight : I will break in 
pieces the gates of brass, and cut in sunder the 
bars of iron. And I will give thee the treasures 
of darkness, and hidden riches of secret places : — 
I girded thee, though thou hast not known me/ 

f Nor do we traverse, or tread the shore of 
depths less profound, when we direct our view to 
the church of God. How many questions crowd 
in, even upon the humble mind, which it is obliged 
to leave unanswered ! How inexplicable to human 
reason is the paucity of the number, which has 
hitherto constituted that church ! How limited 
has been the saving benefit received from a system 
of mercy, which appears to be unlimitedly appli- 
cable to the wants of perishing man ! How soon 
has an impenetrable gloom spread itself over the 
brightest prospects of the church ! What a blight 
has suddenly descended upon its most promising 
fields ! How have the wicked triumphed, and the 
faithful soldiers of Christ retired from the conflict 
in dismay ! Verily, O Lord, thy church, in lowest 
self-prostration, must say, * Thy judgments are a 
great deep ! ' 



406 THE DEPTHS OF PROVIDENCE. 

" Our individual observation and experience no 
less clearly displays the force of this sentiment. 
I have seen, what seemed to me the wisest 
schemes for advancing true religion in a city, a 
parish, or a family, frustrated, while others of an 
apparently opposite character have succeeded. I 
have seen individuals enjoying every external 
advantage, fall short of the kingdom of heaven, 
while others, surrounded by almost every impedi- 
ment have rushed forward, and taken it by force. 
I have seen prosperity assigned to the lot of one, 
whose incipient religion has thereby been nipped 
in the bud ; while the nature and fruitful piety of 
another has been most severely pruned by rapidly 
successive cuttings of affliction. With such things 
before me, I could only say, ' Thy judgments are a 
great deep : ' or endeavour to enter into the feelings 
of my Saviour's mind, when he said, 1 1 thank 
thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because 
thou hast hid these things from the wise and pru- 
dent, and hast revealed them unto babes. Even 
so, Father, for so it seemed good in thy sight.' 

" My personal experience, may every Christian 
say, corresponds with my observation. The divine 
judgments respecting me have been deep, whether 
I view them as illustrative of the wisdom, the 
power, or the love of God my Saviour. How 
mysterious and wonderful were the paths by which 
he led me through all the days of my unregenerate 



THE DEPTHS OF PROVIDENCE. 407 

state, to the moment when he brought me to him- 
self, embraced me with the arms of his reconciled 
love, and adopted me into his ransomed family. 
Surely those paths resembled the ways of Jonah 
' in the deep, in the midst of the seas/ Since 
then, his Holy Spirit lias graciously dealt with me 
as he did with his ancient people, subsequently to 
their emancipation from Egyptian slavery. ' He 
made known his ways unto Moses, his acts unto 
the children of Israel/ Yet are there many 
appointments of his will, respecting both my tem- 
poral and spiritual lot, which are to me inscrutable, 
and which, probably, will so remain, until I see 
Him face to face. 

" But let us take one more view of ' the judg- 
ments of God as a great deep : ' — the view 
presented us through the vista of prophecy. Of 
what unprecedented transactions is this world to 
be the theatre, before the consummation of all 
things ! What trials, and what subsequent glories 
await the church ! What struggles are to be 
made, what efforts put forth, what temporary 
advantages gained by the Anti-christian powers ! 
What a field of carnage is to spread around the 
prostrate walls of ' Babylon the great/ and around 
the unassailable bulwarks of ' the holy city ! ' 
Who can, by anticipation, fathom the depth of 
that sea of glory, which for one thousand 
years is to cover the earth, or of that mysterious 



408 THE DEPTHS OF PROVIDENCE. 

'judgment/ for the execution of which, ' satan 
shall be loosed out of his prison,' preparatory to 
the ultimate triumph of ' the camp of the saints, 
and the beloved city,' the resurrection of the dead, 
and the final judgment? 

" May the Lord, however, impart to us all, the 
meek and lowly spirit of Moses, that we may ever 
profitably bear in remembrance his wise monition : 
' The secret things belong unto the Lord our God : 
but those things which are revealed, belong unto 
us and to our children for ever, that we may do 
all the words of this law.' 

" Yet, as we now delight to pore upon the 
calmly-swelling ocean from an overhanging rock, 
and look many a fathom down through its trans- 
parent wave ; may we not joyfully anticipate a 
day, when, reposing in the calm of heaven, we 
shall be gifted with sufficiently penetrating powers 
of vision, to see through the depths of at least the 
judgments of God, which affect his church, and 
particularly ourselves? Of this we are assured, 
that every mystery shall be explained, which it 
really concerns our happiness to comprehend. 
• What thou knowest not now, thou shalt know 
hereafter.' 

" In the interim, may it be our grand and pri- 
mary object, to store our minds with all that the 
Lord has been pleased to reveal in his word, and 
which he applies by his Spirit to the heart. Thus 



THE DEPTHS OF PROVIDENCE. 409 

shall we be fully capable of entering into the great 
Apostle's views, as given in his Former Epistle to 
the Corinthians. ' Eye hath not seen, nor ear 
heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, 
the things which God hath prepared for them that 
love him. But God hath revealed them unto us 
by his Spirit : for the Spirit searcheth all things, 
yea, the deep things of God. For what man 
knoweth the things of a man, save the spirit of 
man which is in him ? Even so the things of God 
knoweth no man, but the Spirit of God. Now we 
have received, not the spirit of the world, but the 
Spirit which is of God, that we might know the 
things that are freely given to us of God.' " 

The Vicar then conducted the little assembly 
to the throne of the heavenly grace, and afterwards 
brought the service to a close, by giving out to be 
sung, a hymn, which, at his request, his younger 
daughter had written on the words of his present 
subject. 

HYMN. 

Though deep thy judgments, sov'reign Lord ! 
Too deep for line of man to sound, 
Yet may I fathom, by thy word, 
Some distance down the dark profound. 

This may I see, that love pervades 
The boundless ocean as it rolls ; 
Its brightest hues — its darkest shades 
Are gilded with thy love to souls. 

T 



410 THE DEPTHS OF PROVIDENCE. 

Amazing grace ! that stoop'd to save 
My spirit from the drear abyss ; 
That snatch'd me from the naming wave, 
And keeps me for eternal bliss. 

This — this enough ! I ask no more : 
Where angels pause, I fear to tread ; 
Nor trust my footsteps from the shore, 
'Till by thy hand divinely led. 

Then o'er the deep I'll fearless stray, 
Adoring as I pass along ; 
And make the realms of cloudless day 
Re-echo with my grateful song. 






CHAPTER XXXIII 



A LAST VIEW OF THE SEA. 



By general consent it devolved on Pascal 
Hamilton to anticipate their approaching de- 
parture from the coast, and to draw up a concluding 
paper on the above thesis. He cheerfully complied 
with the request of his friends, and when they 
spent their last evening together on Tuesday, he 
read as follows : 

A LAST VIEW OF THE SEA. 

Once more upon the waters ! yet once more ! 
And the waves bound beneath me, as a steed 
That knows his rider. Welcome, to their roar ! 
Swift be their guidance, wheresoe'er it lead ! 
Though the strain'd mast should quiver as a reed, 
And the rent canvass flutt'ring strew the gale, 
Still must I on * for I am as a weed 
Flung from the rock, on Ocean's foam, to sail 
Where'er the surge may sweep, the tempest's breath 
prevail. 



412 A LAST VIEW OF THE SEA. 

" Such was the language and the sentiment of 
the noble, but unhappy Bard, whose song has 
done little for the world, save to relax its already 
too dissolute sense of moral and religious obli- 
gation. Yet, thought I, as I repeated these lines 
to myself, while waiting for the carriage which 
was to convey us from the sea-side to our inland 
home, his mental, and peculiar, and unenviable 
history, evidently, though unconfessedly sketched 
in Childe Harold, may teach me many useful 
and memorable lessons. He, led by the ignis 
fatuus of his own extraordinary but fatal genius, 
wandered about the world, without a home, or a 
heart, which he could call his own : and at last, 
in the prime of manhood, lay down to die in sullen 
unbelief, amidst the scenes of his soul's idolatry. 
How preferable is mediocrity of talent, consecrated 
to the o;ood of man and the glory of God, before 
genius desecrated to its possessor's spiritual ruin, 
to the demoralization of the world, and to the 
dishonour of the Father of lights, from whom 
cometh every good, and every perfect gift. I felt 
thankful that I could quit scenes, to which my 
natural taste, and many most grateful associations 
attached me, without looking upon the rest of 
creation as a blank : that I had a home to return 
to, still more endeared to my best affections ; that 
I had hearts linked with my own by stronger ties 
than human selfishness ; and, above all, that, in 



A LAST VIEW OF THE SEA. 413 

the prospect of an unknown futurity, I could look 
up, through a divine Mediator, to the Great 
Supreme, and humbly, yet confidently say, ' My 
Father, thou art the guide of my youth. Thou 
shalt guide me with thy counsel, and afterward 
receive me to glory.' 

" The carriage now arrived, and when I had 
seated myself in it, and left the town, I yielded 
up my mind to silent emotions of gratitude to ' the 
Father of mercies ' for the innumerable comforts 
and enjoyments, which had blessed our temporary 
residence by the sea. The feeble had been in- 
vigorated, and the strong confirmed in health. We 
had not been called upon, like a family who oc- 
cupied the next house to ours, to leave one of our 
number behind us in the grave. Christian fellow- 
ship with our beloved friends had given a new, 
and even intense interest to scenes and seasons, 
on which the mind looked back with delightful 
recollections ; and though, on the review of our 
time, we had much reason for making humble 
acknowledgments of unprofitableness, yet were we 
thankful to Him, * from whom all holy desires, all 
good counsels, .and all just works proceed/ that 
we had not altogether misimproved our oppor- 
tunities of getting and of doing good. 

" When we reached the eminence, which a 
month before had given us our first view of the 
sea, we again stopped the carriage to take our 



414 A LAST VIEW OF THE SEA. 

farewell of an object, whose various aspects, as 
they had since presented themselves to our nearer 
contemplation, had exhibited every combination 
of the sublime and beautiful, and had acquired an 
interest in our minds, which will terminate only 
with life. Perhaps we should have taken our last 
view, and hastened on with less regret, had the 
day been one of clouds and rain, rather than, as 
it proved, one of the brightest and calmest days 
of the declining year. I was reminded of Dr. 
Johnson's reflections in the concluding paper of 
his Idler. ' There are few things, not purely evil, 
of which we can say, without some emotion of 
uneasiness, this is the last. Those who never could 
agree together, shed tears when mutual discontent 
has determined them to final separation ; of a place 
which has been frequently visited, though without 
pleasure, the last look is taken with heaviness of 
heart. — We always make a secret comparison 
between a part and the whole ; the termination of 
any period of life reminds us that life itself has 
likewise its termination ; when we have done any 
thing for the last time, we involuntarily reflect 
that a part of the days allotted us is past, and 
that as more is past there is less remaining. 

" ' It is very happily and kindly provided, that 
in every life there are certain pauses and inter- 
ruptions, which force consideration upon the care- 
less, and seriousness upon the light ; points of 



A LAST VIEW OF THE SEA. 415 

time, where one course of action ends, and another 
begins ; and by vicissitudes of fortune, or alteration 
of employment, by change of place or loss of friend- 
ship, we are forced to say of something, this is 
the last. 

" ( An even and unvaried tenor of life always 
hides from our apprehension the approach of its 
end. Succession is not perceived but by variation ; 
he that lives to-day as he lived yesterday, and 
expects that as the present day is such will be the 
morrow, easily conceives time as running in a 
circle, and returning to itself. The uncertainty 
of our duration is impressed commonly by dis- 
similitude of condition ; it is only by finding 
life changeable that we are reminded of its 
shortness. 

" ' This conviction, however forcible at every 
new impression, is every moment fading from the 
mind ; and partly by the inevitable incursion of 
new images, and partly by involuntary exclusion 
of unwelcome thoughts, we are again exposed to 
the universal fallacy ; and we must do another 
thing for the last time, before we consider that 
the time is nigh when we shall do no more. — -An 
end must in time be put to every thing great, as to 
every thing little ; to life must come its last hour, 
and to this system of being its last day, the hour 
at which probation ceases, and repentance will be 
vain ; the day in which every work of the hand, 



416 A LAST VIEW OF THE SEA. 

and imagination of the heart, shall be brought to 
judgment, and an everlasting futurity shall be 
determined by the past.' 

" As I turned away from giving my final look at 
the now distant ocean, I was strongly reminded 
of St. John's vision in Patmos, and my thoughts 
voluntarily ran into a metrical mould on his words : 

AND THERE WAS NO MORE SEA. 

From Patmos* rocky height, the Prophet's view 
Embrac'd the future scene. Lo, all was new ! 
New heav'ns distill'd their stainless dews around, 
And fertiliz'd a new earth's teeming ground : 
No storms disturb'd. no clouds obscur'd the sky, 
And all beneath was peace and harmony ; 
Gone were the springs of error, wrath, and guile ; 
Heav'n smil'd on earth, and earth return'd the smile. 
And there was no more sea ! the new-born whole 
Bloom'd one vast Paradise from pole to pole ; 
From passions that pollute, from fiends that tempt, 
Tempestuous troubles, changes, wars exempt. 
No separating deep 'tween saint and saint, 
No secret sorrow, and no loud complaint 
Was there : God wip'd all tears from ev'ry eye 
And gave to ev'ry soul its changeless destiny." 



FULLER, PRINTER, BRISTOL. 



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